''^.. 



\ %/ ' 






"y^r 



P!^ ^'"^ 














0^ %'*yT^-\A 




'^o. 



V^^\*'^ "<v*^"'\°' "^^.'♦•^'\^*' -* 







lo> 



















o > 



• e^'^C^Vv-a.*^- O 



^°v 




:- '^^o« : 



^•i°^ 










--V 



*<^ 












O W ' 4^ 



.V 









> v/^- 
















.* >^ 







"^^^^ rv o " a "^ 









'^0^ 
















-^^0^ 

^^^x. 









,&^>. 




jW 



THE 



VISION OF RUBETA. 




The .irni.'^ of the twr-f Pjtke Vxinon innvsMUleU ftj) concMsrvn of Hi.s Swinimnvo Majtstp . (is Huzcnfft pn -page K'd, 
(U'rt/rii:ii(i Ui tUejiatcnt issued by Juvwi^, Iiuiii-t>f-Arn\^ of Haiitam hi'hvaan Ih-c iltree rivers . 



THE 



VISION OF RUBETA, 

AN EPIC STORY 
OF THE ISLAND OF MANHATTAN. 

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS, DONE ON STOJfE. 



AUSV9 CELEBR^RE DOMESTICA FACTA. 




BOSTON: 

WEEKS, JORDAN, AND COMPANY. 

M DCCC XXXVIII. 



^'c^.V^ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1838, by 

Weeks, Jordan, and Company, 

in the Clerk's office of the tJislrict Court of the District of Massachusetts 



THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE 



I ADVISE nobody to attempt to jfind me 
out. The endeavor can end only in dis- 
appointment, after bringing perhaps upon 
many innocent persons the annoyance of 
temporary suspicion. There are but three 
ways which can lead to any probability of 
discovery, where an author is determined 
to remain concealed : first, the carelessness 
or treachery of confidants ; secondly, certain 
circumstances, in the course of his labors, 
that can with difficulty be made to apply 
to more than one person ; thirdly, a known 
style. The two first ways are effectually 
closed, in the present case. As for the 
third, I would observe that there is no au- 
thor, in any era of literature, who stands 



vi THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 

absolutely alone in his manner of composi- 
tion : for, though he were the originator of 
a style, yet would he, almost ere his book 
were dry from the press, have imitators in 
abundance. There is a degree of resem- 
blance among all the writers of any partic- 
ular epoch in letters. For example, take 
those of the time of Anne, in England; 
they have all a certain family likeness in 
their respective classes, which would ena- 
ble you at once, after having seen any one 
of them, to know where with probability 
to place the date of the others' existence. 
They are distinguishable from one another 
only by the degrees of excellence, good, 
better, best, — as are the writers of the pres- 
ent day by their respective worthlessness, 
bad, worse, worst, or their relative inferi- 
ority, little, less, least. I might tell you a 
story here, to prove that the judgment of an 
author's personal identity by the features of 
his style is about as hazardous as swear- 
ing to the characters of his handwriting ; 
but the author of the Pursuits of Liter- 



THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. vii 

ature has saved me the trouble. Thus he 
writes : — 

" Julius Scaliger wrote and published an oration, without his 
name, against the celebrated tract, by Erasmus, called Cicero- 
nianus. Erasmus, having perused it, immediately (and upon 
conviction, as he thought,) fixed upon Hieronymus Aleander, 
who was afterwards made an Archbishop by Leo the Tenth, and 
a Cardinal by Pope Paul the Third, as the author of the whole, 
or of the greatest part of it, by signs which he conceived to be 
certain and infallible. These signs were strong indeed : his 
phraseology, his manner of speaking, his pecuhar diction, his 
habits of life, and even the very intercourse which Erasmus 
had daily with him. Nay, his genius and disposition were so 
evident, that Aleander could not be more intimately known to 
himself, than he was to Erasmus. Yet Erasmus was mis- 
taken ENTIRELY. His judgment and sagacity will not be 
questioned. But hear his own words ; for, on such an oc- 
casion as the present, they are particularly remarkable. ' Ex 
phrasi, ex ore, ex locutione, ahisque compluribus, raihi persuasi 
HOC OPUS, maxima saltern ex parte, esse Hieronymi Aleandri. 
Nam mihi genius illius ex domestico convictu adeo cognitus 
perspectusque est, ut ipse sibi non possit esse notior ' ! ! 
(Erasmi Epist. 370. c. 1755. Op. Fol. Ed. opt. Lugd.)"* 

I repeat. I myself defy discovery from 
any circumstances in a poem, where I do 
not once appear in my individual character : 
its style, as I have said before, no man can 

* Purs, of Lit. 9th ed. Lond. pp. 1, 2. * * 



Vlll THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 

pronounce upon with any degree of cer- 
tainty : and, for my secret, there are but 
two or three persons in the world that know 
it, and I should not have intrusted it to them, 
had I not had confidence in their honor and 
discretion. But, while I make this declara- 
tion, let it be noted distinctly, that it is no 
motive of personal fear, which induces me 
to wear a mask. They, who are so rash as 
to assume the contrary, will one day find 
their mistake. I could even now, with all 
my heart, say with Icilius : 

Tutto il periglio io veggio : 
Percio lo affronto : * 

but it is not my cue. When the poem shall 
have obtained that measure of success which 
is thought necessary to promote its object, 
I shall drop the veil ; and a hearty in- 
dignation will keep warm till then. I 
therefore advise all such persons to spare 
their invectives till the proper season, as- 
sured that no abuse, however noisy, nor any 

* Alfieri. Virginia. Atto Vo. Sc. la. * * 



THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. ix 

insinuations, however pointed, can rouse me 
from my covert till it shall be my pleasure ; 
while, to those who may derive amusement 
from my labors, I add, with that reviver 
of the foolery, without the wit, of Sterne, 
Doctor Daniel Dove, that, if any of them 
shall have my offspring laid at his door, I 
hope he will take it up for pity, and in 
silence, nor deny the parentage, as, in so 
doing, while he cannot actually harm him- 
self, he will help to thicken the mystery 
which it is my present interest to gather 
round me. 

The quantity of notes, towards the close 
of the volume, may be thought excessive ; 
but the characters of the poem are persons 
of so respectable a standing, that it is a duty 
I owe to myself, and to my fellow-citizens, 
to justify the severity of the censure passed 
upon them, which I am much deceived if 
I shall not be found to have done in every 
particular. 

The long note,^ on Mr. Wordsworth's 

* Page 283, and Appendix. * * 
h 



THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 



pretensions to distinction as a poet and a 
critic, will need no apology with those who 
may happen to be convinced by its argu- 
ments, or who are, already, of a similar 
opinion with the writer. Had Mr. Words- 
worth remained where Byron laid him, I 
should not have thought to write the epitaph 
of his muse, which, in that case had been 
impertinent, because superfluous ; but he has 
had a resurrection, and is now so radiant in 
the apotheosis of popularity, that men's eyes 
are dazzled, and they deem it profanation to 
consider whether the deification be rational, 
or have its origin in the grossest of delu- 
sions. I share a satirist's prescriptive privi- 
lege, and am troubled with no such scruples. 



PREFACE OF THE EDITOR. 



The singular circumstances, under which the Vision 
of Rubeta came into the hands of its present proprie- 
tor, cannot be now recounted ; for, though the recital 
would not indeed endanger a secret which the Author 
has not chosen to reveal, yet would it compromise the 
security of the Editor, by exposing him to suspicions 
with which he is too humble to desire to be honored. 
It is sufficient to say, that, when the manuscript was 
conveyed to him for publication, permission was ac- 
corded to add, provided he effaced nothing, such com- 
ments as he might deem proper. Of this indulgence, 
it will be seen, he has liberally availed himself. His 
principal efforts have been confined to giving to the 
heroic characters of the Author's muse a reality, if they 
be but shadowy creations of the brain, or the advantage 
of a modern reflection, if (as he rather thinks) they 
are the gigantic beings of a past epoch, and of per- 



xii PREFACE OF THE EDITOR. 

haps an extinct race of humanity ; for who ever heard 
of a Ruheta 1 and though indeed a Petronius and a 
Margites have both been known, yet very different 
were they (at least the former) from the Petronius 
and Margites who give such relief to the brilliancy 
of RuBETA, and with him form the grand effect of 
this solemn poem. Not that the Editor by any means 
vouches for it, that his conjectures will be found cor- 
rect; but, in the absence of all certain information, 
he presumes that his efforts to illustrate the char- 
acters and actions of the poem, by parallels drawn 
from real hfe and contemporary events, will be found 
acceptable, and perhaps useful. 

The parts he has contributed to the volume are in- 
dicated by a couple of stars. 



* * 



* A^vfAiXn xtXa^riifUt ruv "E*/ — 

Z^i(pupiuv K.oKguv ytviav aXtyuv, 
"Ev3-« ffvyxaifjioi^aff', iyyuKfofAKi 
M« f*tVf tit MoTcrai, <poyo^svov trr^arov, 
M«y a^u^xrov xccXuVf 

PiND. Olymp. xi. 13 — 19. Heyne. Lond. 1823. 

Hoc ego opertum, 
Hoc ridere meum tarn nil, nulla tibi vendo 
Iliade. Audaci quicunque afflate Cratino, 
Iratum Eupolidera praegrandi cum sene palles, 
Aspice et hsec, si forte aliquid decoctius audis. 
Inde vaporata lector mihi ferveat aure, 
Non hie, qui in crepidas Graiorum ludere gestit 
Sordidus, et lusco qui possit dicere Lusce, 
Seque aliquem credens, Italo quod honore supinus 
Fregerit heminas Areto sedilis iniquas ; 
Nee qui abaco numeros, et secto in pulvere metas, 
Sat risisse vafer, multum gaudere paratus 
Si Cynico barbam petulans Nonaria vellat. 
His mane edictum, post prandia Calliroen do. 

Pers. I. 121 — 134. Casaubon. Lond. 1647. 



Thus much it has been judged requisite to lay before the world in relation 
to [RUBETA] ; not with any view of exalting his character higher than it 
deserves, which is quite needless; but of making its real value more generally 
known, and of rescuing it from the misrepresentations of a few misinformed 
or malevolent men. To some, no doubt, the portrait here drawn of him will 
appear a very flattering one ; but it will be much easier to call than to prove 
it such. Nothing has been advanced but what is founded on the most au- 
thentic evidence, nor has any circumstance been designedly strained beyond 
the truth. And if his [Eminence] did really live and act in such a manner 
that the most faithful delineation of his conduct must necessarily have the air 



XIV 



of a panegyric, the fault is not in the copy, but in the original. Revieic of the 
Life and Character of Archbishop Secker, by Dr. Porteus. (p. 67. N. York. 
1773.) 

Thine own mouth condemneth thee, and not I. Job xv. 6. 



— the gentlemen of the press, whose livelihood is lying. — Sir W. Scott's 
Diary. Memoirs, by J. G. Lockhart, Esq. (Vol, IV. p. 249, Galignani's 
EdiUon.) 

For daily bread the dirty trade they ply, 
Coin their fresh tales, and live upon the lie. 

Crabbe. The Newspaper. 

They '11 sit by the fire, and presume to know 

W^hat 's done i' the Capitol; who 's like to rise, 

W^ho thrives, and who declines; side factions, and give out 

Conjectural marriages ; making parties strong. 

And feebling such, as stand not in their liking. 

Below their cobbled shoes. Coriolanus, A. I. Sc. 2. 

You have neither feelings nor opinions of your own ; but, like a glass in a 
tavern, bear about those of every blockhead who gives you his ; and, because 
you mean no harm, think yourselves excused, though broken friendships, dis- 
cords, and murders, are the consequences of your indiscretions. Belle's Strat- 
agem, (Mrs. Inchbald's Stage-edition,) A. ii. Sc. 1. 

Far be from me the uncharitable presumption, that these sanguine persons 
are destitute of principle, or void of right intentions. Doubtless, in many in- 
stances, they persevere in error for no reason, but because they believe it to be 
truth. There is even much that is right in them ; but are they not too easily 
satisfied with a low measure of that right, without examining accurately the 
quality of the practice, merely because it is not disreputable ? Christian Mor- 
als, by Hannah More, Chap, xviii. (p. 216, 1st Amer. ed.) 



JBacCB. ^icfiat "jfomfoZ ^i\ioZ. 
Oi (MEv ya.^ ei/xir' tlfflv ' o'l V ovtej, kxxoi. 
Herc. T/ V ; ovK lo^uv Z,ri ; 

JBacCH, T!(ivto yu^ TBI xu) f/.OVOV 
"Er* iffr) Xotvrov aya^ov, ti xai rovr' cL^ei. 
Ow ya.^ ffu.(p' eio ouo' alro rovB-* etus ix^'' 
# # * # * 



XV 

Hbrc. Oukouv trip 'i<fr hrctv^u fAti^aKukXicc, 

^vpi-ri^ou TXi7v n trraVtu XbcX'ktti^x; 

Baccb. 'Et/(P«XA/^£; raur Iffrty ko.) ^TuituK^aru., 
XsXi^acdwv fji.ovaii«i XaSi^rat Te;^;y»js, 
"A (p^ov^cx, BZrrov, tiv fcovov ^o^ov XoiSfi, 
"A*a| T^oirav^^a'avTa, tv T^ayMdicf. 
TovifAov Se "PToinfrtv av ov^ iv^ois 'iri, 
Ttnruv eiv, otrns p>7/xx ytvvxTov Xeixoi. 

Aristoph. Ran. 72 — 77, 89 — 97. ed. Br. Arg. 1783. 

[Exilibus racemuHs, succo carentibus, comparatos adolescentulos illos, qui, 
nondum maturo ingenio, tragoediae componendfB se pares esse rentur, ait Bac- 
chus statim arescere, evanescere, si, accepto choro, semel tantum in Tragcedi- 
am minxerint, etc. De Tragoedia, tanquam de meretrice, loquitur, quae ama- 
toribus poetis copiam sui facit. Brunckii Annotat-I -^ 

Je vois les Briguants, les Bourreaulx, les Adventuriers, les Palefreniers de 
maintenant plus doctes que les Docteurs et les Prescheurs de mon temps. Que 
dirai-je ? Les femmes et les fiUes ont aspire \ ceste loijange et manne celeste 
de bonne doctrine. Rabelais, Liv. ii. chap. 8. Amst. 1741. in-4to. 

Is there a boy, at the present day, who fancies himself in love with his 
nurse, or has been kissed by the ladies that visit his mama, but straightway 
writes Sonnets to Hope, Odes to Despair, and Lines to Blank .? etc. 

***** — is not this the age of brass .? Does not that most dictatorial of lit- 
erary dictators, etc. : does not that most republican of papers, which would have 

all poets Byrons, and all novelists Sir Walter Scotts : does not the L y 

G e tell us, that indiscriminate praise (or puffing) is, and shall be, the 

order of the day ? Alas for the days that are gone ! when genius was 

as sure to produce critics, as a hot sun to breed maggots ; when, etc. etc. Sixty 
Years of the Life of Jeremy Levis, Vol. L p. 213. 

Oh, parbleu ! interrompit le chevalier de Saint-Jacques, nous ne sommes 
pas si timides que vous. Nous n'attendons point, pour decider, qu'une piece 
soit imprimee : des la premiere representation nous en connaissons tout le prix. 
II n'est pas meme besoin que nous I'ecoutions fort attentivement : il suffit que 
nous sachions que c'est une production de don Gabriel pour^tre persuades 
qu'elle est sans defaut. Gil Bias, Liv. x. Chap. 5. 

Pravi favore labi mortales solent, 
Et, pro judicio dum stant errores sui, 
Ad poenitendum rebus manifestis agi. 

PHiEDK. Fab. Lib. V. 5. Burman. .^mstel 1698. 



XVI 

Etenim tam varia sunt palata mortaliuni, tarn morosa quorundam ingenia, 
tam ingrati animi, tam absurda judicia, ut cum his haud paulo felicius agi 
videatur, qui, jucundi atque hilares, genio indulgent suo, quam qui semetma- 
cerant curis, ut edant aliquid, quod aliis, aut fastidientibus aut ingratis, vel 
utilitati possit esse, vel voluptati. Plurimi literas nesciunt, multi contemnunt. 
Barbarus ut durum rejecit, quicquid non est plane barbarum. Scioli aspernan- 
tur ut triviale, quicquid obsoletis verbis non scatet. Quibusdam solum placent 
Vetera, plerisque tantum sua. Hie tam tetricus est, ut non admittat jocos : hie 
tam insulsus, ut not ferat sales. Tam simi quidam sunt, ut nasum omnem, 
velut aquam ab rabido morsus cane, reformident : adeo mobiles alii sunt, ut 
aliud sedentes probent, aliud stantes. Hi sedent in tabernis, et inter pocula de 
scriptorum judicant ingeniis, magnaque cum autoritate condemnant utcunque 
lubitum est, suis quenque scriptis, veluti capillicio vellicantes, ipsi interim tuti, 
et, quod dici solet, I'l^ glxsj, quippe tam leves et abrasi undique, ut ne pilum 
quidem habeant boni viri, quo possint apprehendi. Sunt prseterea quidam tam 
ingrati, ut quum impense delectentur opere, nihilo tamen magis anient auto- 
rem : non absimiles inhumanis hospitibus, qui, quum opiparo convivio prolixe 
sint excepti, saturi demum discedunt domum, nullis habitis gratiis ei, a quo 
sunt invitati. 1 nunc, et hominibus tam delicati palati, tam varii gustus, ani- 
mi preeterea tam memoris et grati, tuis impensis epulum instrue. Thom^ 
Mori ad Petr. JEg. epist. p. vii. ex libelli de Utopiana repuh. edit. Glasg. 
12mo. 1750. 

Mais le fait est que la multitude de livres inlisibles degoftte. II n'y a plus 
moyen de rien apprendre, parce qu'il y a trop de choses a apprendre. Je suis 
occupe d'un probleme de geometric ; vient un roman de Clarisse, en six vol- 
umes, que des anglomanes me vantent comme le seul roman digne d'etre lu 
d'un homme sage : je suis assez fou pour le lire ; je perds mon temps et le fil 
de mes etudes. Puis, lorsqu'il me fallut lire dix gros volumes du president 
de Thou, et dix autres de Daniel, et quinze de Rapin Thoyras, et autant de 
Mariana, arrive encore un Martinelli, qui veut que je le suive en enfer, en 
purgatoire, et en paradis, et qui me dit des injures parce que je ne veux pas y 
aller ! Cela desespere. La vue d'une biblotheque me fait tomber en syncope. 

Mais, me dit M. Gervais, pensez-vous qu'on se mette plus en peine dans ce 
pays-ci de vos Chinois et de vos Indiens, que vous ne vous souciez des prefaces 
du signer Martinelli ? Eh bien ! M. Gervais, n'imprimez pas mes Chinois et 
mes Indiens. 

M. Gervais les imprima. 

Voltaire. Lettres ChinoiseSf &c. xii. 



LIST 



OF SUCH LIVING PERSONS 

AS ARE PARTICULARLY MENTIONED IN THE COURSE OF THIS VOLUME.* 



Mr. John Quinct Adams. 
American Ambassador to the court 

of . 

Prof. Henry J. Anderson. 
Prof. Charles Anthon. 
Rev. Mr. Henry Anthon. 
Author of " Jeremy Levis." 

B. 

H. L. B. 

Mr. Wm. Thompson Bacon. 

Mr. John Bailey. 

Miss Joanna Baillie. 

Mr. Banim. 

Mr. Park Benjamin. 

Dr. Bird. 

Mrs. Bird. 

Mr. Bleecker. 

Lady Blessington. 

Miss Caroline Bowles. 

Loraina Brackett. 

Dr. Amariah Brigham. 

Dr. Brownell. 

Rev. Dr. Wm. C. Brownlee. 

Bruno. 

Mr. Wm. Cullen Bryant. 

Mr. Buchanan, (Sen. U. S.) 

Mr. Edward Lytton Bulwer. 

Mr. Thomas Campbell. 

Camus. 

Dr. Capron. 

Mr. Thomas Carlyle. 

Caudex. 

Rev. Dr, Channing. 

Mrs. Child. 



Civis. 

Mr. Macdonald Clarke. 

Mr. Clay, (Sen. U. S.) 

Common Council of Manhattan. 

Mr. Connor. 

Contributors to the " Knickerbocker 

Magazine." 
Contributors to the " New- York 

Mirror." 
Contributors to the " New- York 

Review." 
Mr. James Fennimore Cooper. 

Mr. George Dearborn. 
Mr. Charles Dickens. 
Thomas Downing. 
Mr. Wm. Duer. 
Mr. DwiGHT. 

Rev. Dr. Manton Eastburn. 
Miss Maria Edgeworth. 
Mrs. E. F. Ellet. 
Mr. EwiNG, of Ohio, (Sen. U. S.) 

Flaccus. 

Mr. David Hale. 
Messrs. Harper & Brothers. 
Rev. Dr. Francis L. Hawks. 
Mr. Nathaniel Hawthorne. 
Mr. Henry W. Herbert. 
Historical Society of New York. 
Mr. Charles F. Hoffman. 
Lord Holland. 
Mr. Ball Hughes. 
Mr. Leigh Hunt. 



* The names in Italic ttjpe are fictitious designations, in some cases assumed by the 
persons themselves to whom they relate, in others assigned to them by the Author. * * 



XVlll 



A LIST OF PERSONS. 



Mr. Washington Irving. 
Mr. Benjamin D'Israeli. 

General Jackson. 
Mons. J. Janon, (the critic of the 
Journal des Dihats.) 

Mrs. France s-Kemble Butler. 
Mr. Charles King. 

Miss L. E. Land ON. 
Mr. Leavitt. 

Mr. J. G. LOCKHART. 

Mr. Richard Adams Locke. 
Mr. Long. 

M. 
MARGITES. 

Matthias. 

Miss . 

Mr. Mitchell, (the translator of 

Aristophanes.) 
Molcus. 
Maria Monk. 
Mr. Clement C. Moore. 
Mr. Nathaniel F. Moore. 
Mr. Thomas Moore. 

Mr. M. M. Noah. 

Mr. Daniel O'Connel. 
Mr. Laughton Osborn. 
Mr. Robert Owen. 

Mr. John Howard Payne. 

Frances Partridge. 

Mr. James K. Paulding. 

PETROJVIUS. 

Mr. Tyrone Power. 

Mr. William H. Prescott. 



Mr. Preston, (Sen. U. S.) 
Mr. Joseph Price. 

-Dr. David M. Reese. 
Father Richards. 
Mr. Leitch Ritchie. 
Mr. RoscoE. 
Signor Rossinl 
RUBETA. 
Signor Rubini. 

F. W. S. 

Parson S ^- 



Mr. Daniel Seymour. 
Dr. John Augustine Smith. 
Mr. Robert Southey. 
Mr. William L. Stone. 
Old Suffolk. 

Mr. Thomas Noon Talpourd. 

Signor Tamburini. 

Mr. Arthur Tappan. 

Tartar. 

Mrs. Trollope. 



Mr. W . 

Mr. Adam Waldie. 

Mr. Ward. 

Mr. Walsh. 

Dr. John Ware. 

Dr. John C. Warren. 

John Waters. 

Prof. Wayland. 

Mr. James Watson Webb. 

Mr. Daniel Webster. 

Mr. Noah Webster. 

Mr. Robert W. Weir. 

Mr. N. P. Willis. 

Mr. Secretary Woodbury. 

Mr. William Wordsworth. 



The reader will oblige himself, as well as the Editor, by making the 
following corrections before entering en the Poem. 



'flp-e 


29, 


line 


17, 


for 152-157, 


read 


177-182. 


6 
tt 


47, 


(I 


9, 


" 260-261, of Canto iii., 


a 


246 on page 158. 


t( 


ti 


it 




" 715, 


a 


714. 


U 


68, 


ti 


20, 


" 35, 


a 


34. 


a 


95, 


it 


34, 


" Vol.1, 


a 


Vol. 2. 


u 


108, 


it 


28, 


« 246th verse of Canto iii., 


" 


246th verse on page 158. 


n 


134, 


ti 


24, 


" 756, Canto iv.. 


a 


757, Canto iii. 


a 


149, 


it 


41, 


after Videe Poet., 


a 


i. 177. 


te 


162, 


it 


32, 


for 258, 
« Fretille's caution, 


it 


258 on page 157. 


it 


164, 


ti 


6, 


it 


Fretille's emotion. 


u 


165, 


it 


18, 


" 635, 


a 


631, 


u 


7 
a 


it 


30, 


" 543-549, 


(t 


643, 549. 


t( 


179, 


ft 


25, 


" 498, 


it 


493. 


tt 


ti 


tt 


27, 


" 498, 


" 


493. 


(t 


184, 


it 


29, 


" 708, 


ti 


720. 


ft 


191, 


tt 


41, 


" 472, 


it 


478. 


It 


209. 


it 


14, 


annex ** 






it 


214, 


it 


21, 


after man. 


insert when he saw the beggar. 


tt 


241, 


a 


19, 


for 713, 


read 


714. 


tt 


267, 


it 


45, 


" 707, 


a 


714. 


tt 


271, 


ti 


2; 


, after thus, 


put 


a comma. 


tt 


281, 


a 


20, 


for 246 of Canto iii. 


read 246 on page 1&«. 


it 


it 


a 


37, 


, « 246 of the preceding Canto, " 


246 on page 15«. 



There are, doubtless, many other errors in the course of the volume ; but they are 
such as will occur in the first edition of almost any work of equal size, and, as they 
must be detected at a glance, they need no enumeration. Such, for examples, are 
the word " craven," p. 62, line 20, - for cavern ; '' Fauxbourg," p. 136, Ime 32, - tor 
Faubourg 5 and « Vergine," p. 180, lines 14, 21, 26, - for Virgine. * * 



CANTO FIRST. 



THE CONVENTION 



ARGUMENT. 

The subject proposed. The invocation. The scene of the 
action of the poem. The members of the solemn convention 
in a state of great despondency, caused by the want of coals 
and the absence of their chief. Dulness, concerned lest her 
darling should arrive too late for the great business of the 
night, makes a bargain with Caution, whereby the latter 
engages to relieve the hero from the difficulty into which 
Envy and Vanity have plunged him. Awful entrance of the 
rescued monarch. He is hoisted (not without mischance) 
to a temporary throne, amid the acclamations of his subjects. 
He begins to recount the perils from which he has escaped ; 
and by a necessary digression hurries off his hearers with him 
to Montreal, to the prime source of his recent troubles. 
RuBETA relates his arrival at the convent of the Hotel-Dieu ; 
his reception by the sisters ; his interview and parley with the 
abbess and the green father ; and how the abbess told her 
dream. * * 



THE 



VISION OF RUBETA 



CANTO FIRST. 

I SING RuBETA, who in vision dread 
Saw tipp'd like Midas' own his solemn head, 
When met, with other rogues, in grave debate. 
To prop the throne of Folly's ancient state, 
By virtue rais'd he rul'd it, and still rules, 5 

High-Priest of Hypocrites and King of Fools. 

Say, goddess ! thou who chalk'st th' unsettled score 
On the blurr'd slate at Memory's hostel-door, 
How, flogg'd by Fate, the newsman at full trot 
Jokes left behind, and broken wind forgot, lo 

Ver. 6. High-Priest of Hypocrites and King of Fools.] The titles con- 
ferred upon him by the united divinities in the last Canto. So the 3d 
and 4th lines allude to the actions and events of the five first Cantos ; 
and the first division of the 5th line to the 7th Canto. The 1st and 
2d lines indicate the general subject and grand event of the poem. 

# # 

7-12. Say, goddess ! etc.] 

Musa, mihi caussas memora, quo numine Iseso, 
Quidve dolens, regina deum tot volvere casus 
Insignem pietate virum, tot adire labores, 
Impulerit : tantsene animis ccElestibus irae ? 

ViRG. ^n. i. 8-11. (Hunter, 1799.) 
10. Jokes left behind — ] Nothing but very superior jockeyism could 
have forced the hero to this sacrifice ; for "gentle Dulness ever loves 
a joke : " and, as it will be seen, joking is a passion of Rubeta's. 



4 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

O'er Prudence' five-barr'd gate achiev'd the leap : 
Through hackney's veins can such high mettle creep ? 

An old blind lane there is (if there be such 
In the New World) ; a colony of Dutch 
Once litter'd there, so runs the vulgar fame, 15 

And gave it doubtless some good old Dutch name ; 
Since lost to Webster : haply this dull tale 
May godsire stand where city records fail, 
And one rare scene, S****'* wit's most brilliant sally, 
Rechristen it Hedge-row or blind Toad-alley. 20 

Here, on that snug and duly-number'd spot 
In Bleecker's auction-bills advertis'd " Lot," 
Stood an ag'd roof: the Council pufF'd it down, 
To ease their bristled sheep and air the town : 



Ver. 13, 16. An old blind lane there is — A colony of Dutch — Once 
littered there,] 

Urbs antiqua fuit, Tyrii tenuere coloni. 
Mn. i. 12. 
17. Since lost to Webster — ] The lexicographer. 

19. — 5****'* y)it^s most brilliant sally,] Commentators generally 
conclude that it is the name of the hero which is here set in stars : yet 
certainly there is no 5" in Rubeta. It may be some familiar title under 
which he is known in vulgar life. We should prefer, however, to read 
of, when the verse will stand thus : 

And one rare scene, of wit most brilliant sally ! * * 

20. — Hedge-row, or blind Toad-alley.'] In allusion perhaps to the name 
of the hero. Consult thereon Canto iv. ; note to v. 537. Hedge is also a 
prefix of contempt to the name of any thing particularly low : thus we 
say, hedge-priest, hedge-poet, hedge-newsman, etc. See Johnson, at 
the word. * * 

22. — Bleeczer — ] The Mr. George Robins, or, in cant phrase, ^^ crack 
auctioneer," of Manhattan. * * 



CANTO FIRST. 6 

But then, when sane, these righteous overseers 25 
Brought neither bricks nor lime on orphans' ears, 
If chanc'd improvement-whims to get astride 
The public brain, or Lucre cockhorse ride. 
It rear'd secure a front of sober gray. 

Like Parson S too solemn for display : 30 

Yet a broad sign, the Philpot far before, 
Bright as a Mirror, capp'd the curtain'd door. 



Ver. 25, 28. — when sane, these righteous overseers — Brought neither 
bricks nor lime on orphans^ ears, etc.] For very obvious reasons, we cannot 
illustrate the text by any case of wrong done to private individuals, by 
this growing- abuse of municipal power ; but the papers of this very day 
{March 26, 1838) furnish a very sufficient commentary, in the appeal to 
the public of the " New York Dispensary." This charitable institution, 
which, as the directors state, vaccinates annually, without charge, more 
than 17,000 of the poor of the city, was obliged by the Corporation to 
remove its offices, that the street in which they stood might be widened. 
The expense was $ 8,000, and the " damages allowed to the institution" 
were $ 3,600 ! This statement is signed by some of the first names in 
Manhattan. 

27, 28. If chanced improvement-whims to get astride — The public brain,] 
Doubtless on the sella Turcica ; an excellent accommodation to be found, 
we suppose, as well with that thorough-going hackney, here termed 
" the public brain," or the soul general of the Corporation, as in the 
organized pulp of individual humanity. * * 

81. — the Philpot — ] In Dey-street, where Toby, in all weathers, is 
exposed to the gaze of his many admirers, yet never changes counte- 
nance. 

We regret to state that this sign is no longer in its original situation ; for, having 
made a pilgrimage to the hallowed spot but a month ago, our longing eyes could no 
more discover the jolly visage and the jug of nut-brown ale, which were so lovelily 
conspicuous in Dey-street, but a footlength from Broadway, at the time we first 
received the MS. Ah ! thought we, with a sigh : Ah ! we are all passing : even 
honest Toby must give place to modern innovation. * * 

32. Bright as a Mirror — ] Whether a glass mirror, or the Mirror 
Magazine, the author has not made it appear. Both are equally showy, 
equally ornamental to a breakfast-room or boudoir, both blank, equally 



THE VISION OF RUBETA. 



Here, sable on a field of or, was seen 

A journal-printing, editing machine. 

So like the truth jou look'd to see in folio 35 

A Galen's Head struck off, or Stone's best olio : 



attractive to misses, and to misses* men, and both equally reflect all sorts 
of images. * * 

Bri^rht as a Mirror — ] The compositor is permitted, by the courtesy 
of the editor, to enter a protest against the application of the verse tq 
the Mirror Magazine^ to which he has been long a gratified subscriber, 
and thinks he can in no way do it better than by here setting up the 
commencement of the publisher's modest advertisement, which is as 
follows ; 

"The New York Mirror: A popular and highly esteemed Journal of ele- 
gant Literature and the Fine Arts : embellished with magnificent and costly engravings 
on steel, copper and wood, and rare, beautiful and popular music, arranged for the 
pianoforte, harp, guiiar, etc., and containing articles from the pens of well-known and 
distinguished writers, upon every subject that can prove interesting to the general 
reader, including original poetry — tales and essays, humorous and pathetic — criti- 
cal notices — early and choice selections from the best new publications, both Ameri- 
can and English — scientific and literary intelligence — copious notices of foreign 
countries, by correspondents engaged expressly and exclusively for this Journal — 
strictures upon the various productions in the Fine Arts that are presented for the 
notice and approbation of the public — elaborate and beautiful specimens of art, en- 
gravings, music, etc. — and an infinite variety of miscellaneous reading relating to 
passing events, remarkable individuals, discoveries and improvement in science, art, 
mechanics, etc. etc." 

The remainder of this simple announcement is of the same ingenuous 
character ; for which see any of the Manhattanese newspapers. Now, if 
its account of itself be true, stands not the Mirror the mightiest magazine 
that is, has been, or ever will be ? and certainly what better proof of its 
preeminence can be adduced than these its own assertions ; for do men 
ever boast of virtues which they do not possess ? or do not their actions 
always keep a just ratio to their words ? and are not magazines the 
works of men ? 

35, 36. — you look''d to see in folio — Jl Galen's Head struck off, or 
Stone's best olio :] Certainly an anachronism. Though both these re- 
spectable handbills are of some standing in the anarchy of letters, yet 
neither the old Galen's Head, instituted to prevent the abuse of mercury, 
nor the N. Y. Commercial Advertiser, made facetious to exemplify the 
misuse of common sense, could have been running their parallel course 
at that distant day. * ^ 



CANTO FIRST. 



A trull Stood proper by, with bosom bare, 

And set the types whose cells were painted there. 

Not therefore deem it symbol to express 

That pleasant thing a prostituted press ; 40 

The place was what the vulgar ginshop call, 

But tavern w^e, and clep'd Convention-Hall. 

'T was here, that night whose prodigies august 
Shake from my Muse and best steel point their rust^ 
To chronicle sublime th' unborrow'd glory 45 

Of him, the Ulysses of this brave old story, 
'T was here assembled, on that night of awe. 
Ten puissant names whose canons give the lawj 
In party-politics and bastard rhymes, 
To all who pay for them in these cheap times, so 
These times when judgment moves by engine-pow'r^ 
And wit 's roU'd off two thousand sheets per hour; 
Great publishers of advertisements, where 
For thirty cents one buys himself a square. 
And sees his privy ills, like verse, made famous 55 
With Saponaceous Cream and soaps of Camus, 



Ver. 37. — proper — ] Proper, in blazonry, is where the object ia 
painted in its proper colors. Perhaps we should hate noted on v. 33^ 
that or, in the same jargon, denotes the color of gold. * * 

54. For thirty cents one buys himself a square,] This is misrepresenta- 
tion ; for we do assure the reader it is actually fifty cents a "half-square,"' 
and is so stated in the " advertisement rates." Read therefore : 
For fifty cents one buys him half a square. * * 

56. — Saponaceous Cream — ] I suppose the Ambrosial Saponaceous! 



8 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Each day renew'd, as each condemns, ere past, 

To uses vile the paper of the last : 

Ah, meanly sure the Muse's bow must fail, 

From alehouse-fiddle, such as serves this tale, 60 

To scrape your praise ! Her hand the horsehair 

reaches. 
The cross'd coarse catgut shrilly squeaks and 

screeches. 
The parlor-clock, renown'd for birdlike note, 
Had chanted seven through the cuckoo's throat; 
The sand, fresh-sprinkled on the floor that night 65 
In fairy hills, from gray was turn'd to white ; 
Venus' old cuckold spouse, his rites unpaid, 
Down on the shrine his flaccid bellows laid ; 
The starveling candles redden'd at the wick ; 
The pictures on the walls look'd dull and sick, 70 
(A gafted cock crestfallen seem'd and tame. 
His dunghill cousin might be thought the game ;) 

Compound so advertised ; which is doubtless the identical paste the 
son of Maia uses when he cleans himself, according to Moliere : 

Je lui donne k present conge d'etre Sosie, 

Je suis las de porter un visage si laid ; 

Et je m'en vais au ciel, avec de I'ambrosie 
M'en debarbouiller tout-a-fait. 

Mercure dans rAMPHiTRTON de cet auteur{A. iii. Sc. 10). 

# # 

f6. — CA3IUS,] A well known perfumer at Paris. "* * 
66. — fairy — ] An epithet given now-a-days to every thing that is di- 
minutive or delicate ; and surely, while fairies and all that appertains to 
them are objects of such nightly observation, no image for the nonce 



CAxNTO FIRST. 9 

The newsmen's horde, all gather'd to a man, 
(All but the dark-brow'd sachem of the clan,) 
With skirts dissever'd, group'd about the hearth, 75 
As their hose cooPd grew languid in their mirth. 
The mercury descending dropp'd ev'n joke. 
And only of the great man's absence spoke : 
Why comes he not ? 'T is time we should begin : 
God grant no Jezabel have lur'd him in ! so 

Then trimm'd the tapers some ; while others near 
Rais'd the gilt watch to each alternate ear, 
And dubious shook the wheels, and gap'd to aid them 
hear ; 

could be used with more advantage. To say, of a lady's little digits, 
her fairy fingers, or of her quail pipe, her fairy voice, conveys directly, 
like " fairy-like music," ideas which, to use the editorial phrase, " come 
home to the bosom of every man"; every man having seen, felt, and 
heard, the fingers, voice, and fiddling of a fairy. Therefore we would 
call the Reader's attention to this fine illustration of our Author's ex- 
quisite and ready adaptation of modern improvements. * * 

77. — ev^n joke,] The prerogative, as we have seen, of Dulness, 
and of these her children. * * 

79. Why comes he not ? etc.] 

Why comes he not ? Such truths to be divulg'd, 
Methinks the accuser's rest is long indulg'd. 

Lara, Canto ii. 

80. God grant no Jezabel have lur^d him in .'] We are not to suppose 
that the monarch is at all given to the love of strange women. On 
the contrary, chastity, as we have elsewhere shown, is a conspicuous 
feature of his character. The sons of Dulness, being regular jokers, 
sometimes ofl^end against propriety. Not but that a Jezabel, or rather 
a pair of Jezabels, did, on this particular evening, draw the newsman in ; 
this is matter of history. They were the direct occasion of his tempo- 
rary absence. But then it was all in the cause of God and of justice. 



10 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Or captur'd thieves that pirate in the grease ; 

Or scribbled on the walls some fulsome piece ; 85 

Cawing like crows, their work betwixt at times, 

Songs sweet as Lytton's epithet-chok'd rhymes, 

Which jumbled up of divers sorts of things. 

One wonders what the devil 't is he sings. 

A gentle set, each worthy Folly's throne ; 90 

Yet fourteen such it takes to make one Stone. 

Alone the treasurer his ample croup 

Held to the fire, nor join'd the impatient troop. 

But shivering, with a sigh which rent their souls, 

Mutter'd of funds, and cry'd aloud for coals. 95 

So when, sore-pinch'd, the mother-hound for food 

Steals from the kennel and her blue-ey'd brood ; 

While warm the straw, the milk-fed litter play. 

And tumble o'er each other feebly gay, 

Ver. 87 - 89. Songs sweet as Lytton's epithet-choked rhymes, etc.] 
" Chapelain veut rimer, et c'est-la sa folie." * 

These verses were intended to apply to those purple things with 
which Mr. Bulwer has thought proper to patch his glittering novels. 
But many months after the first canto of the Vision was written, the 
Author came across a larger metrical composition of this popular 
writer's, entitled The Rebel, which he found to have rather more of the 
features of regular rhyme. Only it surprised him much, that any man 
should have chosen to mimic The Corsair, the poem of an author whose 
strong mannerism, however delightful in itself, must make his imitators 
always appear in the plight of a little serving-man whose ill-proportioned 
and diminutive members have recently tumbled into the long-tailed coat 
and capacious breeches of his strapping master of six feet. 

* BOILEAU. ** 



CANTO FIRST. 11 

But, when their flanks grow chill, and palate dries, loo 
Her absence moan with weak and plaintive cries. 
The wit-hounds yelp'd dry sorrow for the treat 
Of pipes and drams, the puppies mourn the teat. 

But 'mid the heroic group, unnotic'd, stood 
Two beings whose veins not purple ran with blood, 105 
But pulseless essence, such as fits a god ; 
Coeval with creation ; still the same 
Till the last thunder wrap the world in flame : 
DuLNESS and Caution. This, to mortal eye. 
Might seem an emmet ; that, a great blue fly, no 
Such as in winter, curs'd with lengthen'd doom, 
Buzzes all lonely through the tepid room. 
Midway the table stood the ethereal pair. 
And thus began the seeming child of air : 

See ! goddess, pale-ey'd mother of Distrust ! ii5 
Believ'st thou now ? Or is the number just ? 
Not these the Muses ; nor so scant my crew. 
Gerro is here, and Pupa ; Caudex too ; 
Petronius' grace ; lo, where gigantic Hale ! 
My son, my joy, is wanting to the tale. 120 

Ver. 115. See! goddess, etc.] This is proved, from v. 134-136, as 
well a-s from the fact that her goddesship and Durness appear to be on 
sufficiently good terms to trade together, to be not the Caution, synon- 
ymous with Prudence, the daughter of Experience and Wisdom, but 
a very different deity, sometimes mistaken for her, and whose province, 
in part, may be easily conjectured from the verses just referred to, 
while her profitable influence is to be seen daily testified in most jour- 
nals, whether political or otherwise. * * 



12 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

O Caution ! though apostate from thy shrine, 

Save the dull chief; for mj sake, ah, for mine! 

Envy and Vanity both goad him on ; 

With banded foes the hero copes alone : 

What do I say ? e'en now the toil is set ! 125 

Now, now, the lion struggles in the net ! 

Are not his foes thy own ? Go, snatch him thence ; 

Bring here his glad vacuity of sense ; 

Without whose aid all wasted runs the hour. 

And the act sleeps should consecrate my pow'r. 130 

Look on these peers, tall pillars of my throne ; 

Yet choose the best, that best is hence thy own ; 



Ver. 127. Are not his foes thy own ?] To wit, Bruno &f Co., as appears 
from V. 150, and from the hero's own account presently given. Bruno's 
passion blinds him even in the pulpit. * * 

130. — the act — should consecrate my poiv^r.] This is the act for 
which RuBETA is elevated to the throne in Canto vii., as alluded to in 
the proposition : 

" When met with other rogues in grave debate, 
To prop the throne of Folly's ancient state, 
By virtue raised he ruVd it,^^ * * 

131-144. Look on these peers, etc.] 

l^uiru oTvii/Litvai, xa) <rriv xskXtJo-^ki uxoitiv, 
Tlaa-i&'ivv, ^s aih iix^iat fifjiarx ^avra. 

"Ay^iif vvv fiat ofjtatrtrov aoiarov ^Tvyo; vou^, 
^ti^) ^l T>5 iri^'/i /u,iv i>.i p^&ovx 9ro'jX'jSoTti^ciVf 
T^ ^ ' l<rs^»j olXa, fjtei^fjtei^ivv ' tva, vut'v aVavrsf 
"M-i^rv^oi uff' ol ivi^h B^so) K^ovav a^^/s iovrts • 

Tlaffi^ittVf ris r' avros iiXdof/,eti tifiara vdvrx. 

HoM. ;/. xiv. 267 -27fi. Clarkii. Edin. 12mo. 1794. 



CANTO FIRST. 13 

To thee shall dedicate his future days, 
Toil in thy mask, and serve thee divers ways. 
Become a very Proteus for thy sake, 135 

And ev'ry humor at thy bidding take. 

Swear by thy mother Night, the ant replies ; 
Swear by thy son, most like thee 'neath the skies ; 
Swear by thyself, all changeless as thou art, 
Dash'd by no shame, excited by no smart, 140 

To me the youth shall dedicate his days. 
Toil in my mask, and serve me divers ways. 
Become a very Proteus for my sake. 
And ev'ry humor at my bidding take. 

The dark-wing'd Power took the oath impos'd ; 145 
And the staid emmet thus the compact clos'd : 

Remember, goddess of the wilder'd eye, 
'T is but for once if Caution deign comply : 



Ver. 132. — is hence thy own;] Not entirely ; for they were born sons 
of DuLNESS, and the Ethiop cannot change his skin. But when taken 
under the supervision and protection of Caution, they lose their flip- 
pancy and pertness, as their general mother herself says, v. 174, and 
become henceforward slower-paced and more sure-footed. * * 

137. _ thy mother Night — ] According to the genealogy established 
by Pope (Dryden not having ascended to her origin): 
Daughter of Chaos and eternal Night. 

Dunciad, i. 12. * * 

147. _ goddess of the wilder'd eye,] A very able critic, who confesses 
he does not understand this figurative phrase, proposes to read drowsy 
eye ; very rashly, as it seems to us. Ddlness is not so much marked 
by drowsiness, which though habitual is not constant with her, as by a 
peculiar, unsettled, twinkling glimmer of the eyes, which gives her an 
appearance as though she fancied she had just lost the wits she never 



14 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Known is thy son no votary of mine, 
And when red Bruno's meshes I untwine, 150 

Take him the powers to whom his altars burn. 
And Vanity and Envy serve his turn. 

She said, and crept to Pupa's head, then past 
To LoRA, Gerro, so on to the last ; 
While on the wing Night's daughter hovering 

near, 155 

Still caught the sounds unheard of mortal ear : 

First will I naught, (thus spake the emmet-queen,) 
Of this blown dunce, of self-sufficient mien. 



possessed, and were in search of them. Those who have the rare felicity 
of knowing our hero, her undoubted progeny, have seen in his orbits of 
vision the maternal feature perfect, and the maternal expression (es- 
pecially when he lectures) ethereally fine : those who have not, will 
derive some information on the subject from our note to v. 192 of 
Canto iv. ** 

150. — red Bruno — ] We know not whether in allusion to the ordi- 
nary complexion of that reverend gentleman, or to a particular heighten- 
ing of the sacerdotal color, by the united heat of polemical zeal and 
literary fury. Probably the latter, in this instance. * * 

152. — Vanity and Envy serve his turn.] And accordingly these de- 
ities resume possession for the rest of the evening. * * 

158. — blown dunce, of self-sufficient mien.] It may be wondered that 
she should not choose Petronius, who, it will be seen in Canto iv, is a 
very weathercock;* but TronVs vacillancy arises not from any motive 
of speculative cautiousness, (though he stands accountant for as great 
a sin,) but from puerile rashness, lightheadedness, and the feminine 
unhappiness of never knowing his own mind. And moreover this very 
inconstancy, instead of benefiting him as his more cunning mates, gets 
him into difficulties that are the very abomination of Caution, who 
never acts at random, however various her movements. * * 

* Except in party-politics, where he loses his pivot. * * 



CANTO FIRST. 15 

Look, how his beak snuffs up the vulgar air ! 

His eyes twin berries in a bush of hair. 160 

Strut, peacock ! for the fowls wherewith thou 'rt 

match'd 
Care not a grain what goose their mothers hatch'd. 
Nor yet of him, yon ribald spawn of dirt. 
Dully despiteful, pitifully pert ; 

So like, in tongue, the beast for whom he stands, 165 
The first green ditch would take him off my hands. 
All look but frail : I know not where to fix ; 
But, to make sure, will take some five or six. 
Petronius, Hale, MargItes, still be thine : 
The rest may make one man ; that man is mine. i7o 

What ! said the fly : these six to grace thy lap ? 
Thou 'It jar the sweetest bells in all my cap ! 
A lively fool 's a fool above all cost : 
Once make 'em thine, and half their virtue 's lost. 
I deem'd this post might serve thee. Caution then : 

Thou hast Margites, and the king of men. i76 

Ver. 161, 162. — the fowls whereivith thou ^rt matdi'd — Care not a grain 
ivhat goose their mothers hatched.] Petronius has the credit, with his 
contemporaries, of being not a little vain of the respectability of his 
birth ; for an account of which, see Canto iv. * * 

163. — yon ribald spawn of dirt,] Coprones, the representative of 
Margites in that convention. For Margites' character see Canto iv. 

169. — Masgites — ] Margites for Coprones, the principal for the 
proxy, the master for the man. So, in line 176. * * 

175. — post — ] All the older copies write this word with a capital 
letter. Caudex is supposed to be the journalist indicated. * * 

176. — the king of men.] Codd. ant. "the King of men." Petro- 
nius, of course, is intended by the periphrasis. * * 



16 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Say these should fail, is not thy son a host ? 
Not more thine own than Levity's proud boast. 

Sweet to the ear the glory of one's child : 
DuLNESS buzz'd pleasure, and (in heart) she 
smil'd. 180 

Bent on her task, the ant weighs first of all 
Ten different plans to issue from the Hall. 
When lo ! coal-bearing Sappho trundled in. 
Caution takes passage on her sable shin. 
Once clear'd the door, she took another form, 185 
Crept to the chief and drew him from the storm. 

But, waiting for her child, from head to head 
Buzz'd the blue fly, and swallow'd all they said ; 
Delighted, thought such wits were never born, 
And griev'd already for the oath she 'd sworn. 190 



Ver. 178. JVot more thine own than LEnrr's proud boast.] That is, Who 
is not less the true child of his father than the heir of his mother ; for 
Levity, it will be seen in the genealogy of Rubeta, bears the same 
honorable relation to the hero in the male gender that Dulness does in 
the female. * * 

185. — she took another form,] Namely, of Bruno's cook, as the hero 
himself supposes, who could not however have that certainty of the 
divine nature of the aid he received, which the Poet enjoys in the inspi- 
ration of his art : 

" I must have dy'd ; but Heav'n sent up the cook, 
Or some kind deity her likeness took, 
Who by the neckcloth drew me from their rage, 
Dragg'd through the hall, and open set the cage, 
Then kicking me, releas'd my torn cravat, 
And sent me down the steps without a hat." 

Canto iih, 632- 637. ** 



CANTO FIRST. 17 

And now the half-hour rung with startling sound. 
One solemn Damn ! prolong'd its echoes round. 
Then, swift as light, by Boots' or Satan's aid, 
The whitewash'd door wide open stood display'd, 
And curs of both degrees, from Paul to Peter, 195 
Broad base and little treble, yelp'd RUBETA ! 

Then shook the dramshop, thrill'd each window- 
frame. 
And all the privies echo'd back the name. 

So when Azazel, cherub tall, unfurPd 
Satan's broad ensign in the brimstone world, 200 
The gather'd host's wild triumph of delight 
Hell's concave tore, and pierc'd the realm of Night. 

The great man inward row'd his solemn state ; 
Bland smiles as ushers of the presence wait : 

Ver. 195. — curs of both degrees - ] " And curs of low degree." 

196. — RuBETA /] For an explanation of the name according to the 
notions of the Author, see our note to v. 537 of Canto iv. 

197. Then shook the dramshop, etc.] 

Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sigh'd 
From all her caves, and back resounded Death. 

Par. Lost, ii. 788, 789. 

198. And all the privies echoed back the name.] Doubtless, as being 
certain shrines of certain Muses. * * 

199. So when Azazel, etc.] See Milton's Paradise Lost, Bk. i., 

534-543. ** ^ ,A X. 

203. The great man inward row'd his solemn state ;] « Row d her 
state" is a borrowed* expression of Milton's, applied to another 

* Virgil applies the metaphor to the more rapid motion of flight -. 

Volat ille per aera magnum 

Remigio alarum ^^- *• ^^^• 

Whence perhaps Thomson's elegant and happily descriptive line, 

" The boat, light-skimming, stretch'd its oary wings." Atitumn, 129. 
3 



18 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Though blue the fount where life goes in and out, 205 
Freely he scatters much sweet breath about, 
Naming with graciousness a favor'd few : 
PETRomus? bless me! Hale! ah, how do' do. 
They led him onward, mincing all the way. 
With sweet, reluctant, diffident delay, 210 

Where bronz'd by service stood a three-legg'd throne. 
Such as exalts the puppetshow of Joan, 
Then heav'd him stiffly up the steep ascent, 
His breeches giving way with awful rent. 
O, in that hour, had they who bore thee up, 215 

O'ercome with mirth, but let thy carcass drop. 
No muse, alas ! had sung thy Vision dread. 
And this thy installation were as dead. 
Through criminal backsliding of thy breeches, 
As thine own Masonry, or Tales and Sketches ! 220 



graceful creature: [Par. Lost, vii. 439.) It is imitated by Pope, 
[Dune. ii. 67 :) " Bernard rows his state." 

205. Though blue the fount where life goes in and out,] From this 
circumstance and the burning of a fire, we gather the time of action to 
have been winter, or the cold season ; a point of some importance to 
the historical accuracy of the narrative, and which will be duly appreci- 
ated by future chronologists. * * 

208. Petronius? bless me! — ] The astonishment of Rubeta at seeing 
the delicate Petronius in such company is easily understood from 
what is said by the prudent goddess in v. 159. * * 

210. With sweet, etc.] And sweet, reluctant, amorous delay. 

Milton, of Eve, P. L. iv. 311. 

211, 212. — a three-legg'd throne, — Such as exalts the puppetshow of 
Joan,"] Doubtless similar to the lofty stool used occasionally by com- 
positors in a printing-office. * * 




Thxn he^aVii kun sUJjiy up tke steep asc^itt, 
HiS br&eches goviruj wcl)J with awful rent. 



Cantij ) P /6> 



CANTO FIRST. 19 

But C^SAR might not sink, nor thou descend! 

The monarch rose, with emptiness to friend. 

And pleas'd look'd down the height with aspect bold, 

Yet felt the rent, and wish'd his seat less cold. 

He wanted but a cap and bells, to look 225 

As very a fool as ever fumbled book ! 

Then wav'd his people's hands, and one loud cheer 
One moment thunder'd on his happy ear. 
Like as when sudden rains come rattling down. 
On market-day, to catch some market-town ; 230 

With coats tuck'd up, the bare-legg'd wenches scour, 
And hucksters yield their bagpipe to the show'r ; 
When o'er, the crowd their draggled steps retrace, 
And the old bustle murmurs through the place. 
So rose, so ceas'd, the transport of applause ; 235 
Ceas'd, when the monarch spread his lion jaws. 
Thus, when an engine is prepar'd to spout 
Whose jetting stream puts conflagrations out, 
First all is tumult with th' encircling crowd. 
And boys delighted shout their rapture loud ; 240 

Hush'd is the din, in mute expectance laid. 
When the pipe 's pointed and the arms are sway'd. 

The monarch hitch'd his trowsers, look'd around, 
And squar'd the throne with harsh and pompous 
sound ; 

Ver. 244. — harsh — ] This epithet probably alludes to the floor's 
being sanded. * * 



20 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Then hemrn'd, and cough'd, and made his eyelids 

close, 245 

And furrow'd deep the skin above his nose, 
And strok'd the paps w^hich graceful flank'd his chin ; 
Rhetoric flourish ere he should begin. 
O spirit of departed Garcia, tell 
What sounds enchanting from the new^sman fell ! 250 
Thy pipe alone, or tenor of Rubini, 
Would serve, or barytone of Tamburini. 

With eyes and mouth wide open, stood the clan. 
Then from his lofty stool the chief began : 

O comrades, friends, the griefs I 've travaill'd 
through, 255 

Your lips, which speak not, bid to swell anew : 

Ver. 253-267. With eyes and mouth wide open stood the clan, — Then 
from his lofty stool, etc.] 

Conticuere omnes, intentique ora tenebant ; 
Inde toro pater ^Eneas sic orsus at alto : 

Infandum, regina, jubes renovare dolorem ; 
Trojanas ut opes et lamentabile regnum 
Eruerint Danai ; quseque ipse miserrima vidi, 
Et quorum pars magna fui. Quis taiia fando 
Myrmidonum, Dolopumve, aut duri miles Ulyssei, 
Temperet a lacrymis? et jam nox humida cobIo 
Prgecipitat, suadentque cadentia sidera somnos. 
Sed, si tantus amor casus cognoscere nostros, 
Et breviter Trojse supremum audire laborem ; 
Quamquam animus meminisse horret, luctuque refugit, 
Incipiam. 

ViRG. Mn. ii. 1 - 13. 

255. — the griefs I V travailVd through, — Your lips, which speak not, 
bid to swell anew ;] Mark with what wonderful acuteness Rubeta 
penetrates their wishes. They needed not to call upon him to excuse 



CANTO FIRST. 21 

How graceless ministers, and Monks as bad, 
Detain'd me late, and all but drove me mad ; 
Till anchored here, for mighty projects spar'd : 
What things I saw, and what in part I dar'd. 260 

Who telling, hearing which, could hold from tears ? 
E'en Bruno's self would weep, or stop his ears. 
But night grows old, yon sooty tapers wink, 
Your pipes are yet claycold, unserv'd your drink : 

his tardiness : they rear him on the stool ; they group themselves 
around ; they set their eyes wide open and their mouths apart, and fix 
them on the chieflain : the hero comprehends their silent interrogatory, 
and with the graciousness of true majesty deigns at once to answer it. 
How inferior the penetration and the breeding of ^Eneas ! he waits 
until the queen expresses verbally her longing : "Ju6es renovare." 

257. — and Monks as bad,] As there are no monks to be found in 
his story, this must be an hyperbolical plurality of one Maria of that ilk, 
or a term generic for her and her younger sister-virgin, who were a 
conspicuous cause of the monarch's delay in opening by his presence 
the solemn council ; and thus pater Ruheta may be supposed to run a 
quibble between ministers and monks, a species of wit which it will be 
seen hereafter he aims at, however unsuccessfully, on all occasions. 
He is already said to ever love a joke. * * 

260. What things 1 saw, and ivhat in part I dar^d.] Very many 
months after the scene at the Convention, Rubeta is found repeating 
this expression in his journal, which shows how deeply imbued is this 
truly great man with the spirit of classic lore. 

«We have written," he says, [Commerc. Adv. of Sept. 4tth, 1837; 
article. Animal Magnetism,) " We have written a narrative of the cir- 
cumstances, comprising some fifty or sixty pages of foolscap ; and we 
venture to say, that nothing hitherto published upon that subject is so 
wonderful by far, as the facts of which we were witness, — oZ^ of which 

we saw, AND PART OF WHICH WE WERE." * * 

Ver. 261. Who telling, hearing which, could hold from tears ?] The pe- 
culiar tenderness of the hero's disposition (of which many instances in 
the course of his most wondrous narrative will be brought before the 
reader) allows us to conjecture, that, at this particular point of his dis- 
course, he suited the action to the word. * * 



22 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Still, if your hearts would follow where I 've 

been, 2G5 

Though my hair bristles to retrace the scene, 
Attend. At that soft hour when capons roost. 
But mortal crops expand to tea and toast, 
I, whose tir'd mind can never relish sleep. 
Nor palate souchong, while my brothers weep, 270 
Was begging through the streets, with box in hand, 
For Northern pills to purge the Southern land. 
Stupendous work ! through grace divine begun. 
To free some hundred thousands one by one. 
When, — mark how Heav'n rewards our good 

deserts ! 275 

Sudden black Cato plucks me by the skirts : 
Not glossy black, as when I set him free, 
But pallid, gaunt ; a child's thrice-turn'd coatee, 

267. Attend. — ] It will be wonderedat first how the chieftain could 
enter the house with so much cheerfulness after so many trials under- 
gone, " tot labores," as he here intimates ; but it will be seen that the 
consciousness of duty well performed, as he himself makes known at 
the conclusion of his story, is oil to the fluctuations of a troubled mind : 
So " blest the man who always keeps 
The pure and perfect way." * * 

271. Was begging through the streets — ] See " N. Y. Comm. Ad- 
vertiser," passim for the last two years. 

273, 274. Stupendous ivork ! through grace divine begun, — To free some 
hundred thousands one by one,] An ingenious project, well worthy of the 
enlightened philanthropist and hero of this poem. Some thousand of 
years hence I hope to live to see this great work accomplished, provided 
the men and women whom Rubeta, a verse or two above, calls his 
brethren, will only show a little of the public spirit which animates this 
apostle of emancipation, and not come together. * * 



CAJNTO FIRST. 23 

Tailless, disclos'd a hideous gape behind, 
Whose shirtless breech let in and out the wind. 280 
No man he seem'd, but pickled-hide and bones. 
And his long heel smote leatherless the stones. 
Not Cato's self, when Hector stripped him bare 
On Troy's green bank, look'd less in want of air. 
Yet Fortune sunn'd her cheerly at the rents : 285 
For Freedom's wealth ; her cap adorns our cents. 
But mark, I say, how Heaven repays the just ! 
Reprieving from his gums a spotted crust. 
The spiritous imp of freedom, shuffling near 
His fragrant mummy, dropp'd this in mine ear : 290 
How the veiPd doves, late fled the spital's wall. 
Sat cooing loud in rev'rend Bruno's hall : 

Ver. 283. iN'ot Cato's self, etc.] Rubeta's classical knowledge has long 
been familiar to the public. In such a man learned allusions can never 
be deemed pedantic ; while, to all true lovers of the poet Ilias, the 
recollection of the famous duel between Hector and the elder Cato, 
by the river Troy, must be truly refreshing. * * 

287. But mark, I say, how Heaven repays the just ! ] Observe how 
modestly Rubeta distinguishes between the obligations of humanity 
and the favors of a generous spirit. He does not call himself kind, or 
charitable, as perhaps any other man had done in similar circumstances, 
but just, as one who had done to his fellow what he would have him 
do to him, should their lots be interchanged. So too, as he allows 
nothing to himself that he does not deserve, neither does he fail to 
exact what is his due, and recollecting that, though a duty to humanity, 
yet the office he had done the slave was a loan unto the Lord, he 
says Avith pardonable, " evangelical," pride, repays, and not, as before, 
rewards. Where else shall we find such equity ! such delicacy of 
moral distinction ! * * 

291. — the veiVd doves — ] Who these may be, will be seen in a sub- 
sequent note. * * 



24 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

There Molcus flutter'd round them ; what to do, 
Wise Cato said, the Devil only knew. 

'T is Heaven's own call ! I crj'd : I '11 seek the 
foe ! 295 

Tremble, great pouter I Cato, ere I go 

Ver. 293. There Molcus fiutier'd round them — ] See the second note 
from this. * * 

295-297. ^Tis Heavens own call! 1 cry'd, etc.] Rubeta has already- 
been compared in the text with CiESAR : his resolution on this occa- 
sion may be likened, here, in the notes, to that of Coriolanus ; who 
makes it his boast that like an eagle he fluttered his enemies in their 
dovecot: "Alone I did it!" says Caius Marcius : "I '11 seek the 
foe ! " says Rubeta ; that is, / alone. 

Yet, to pursue our commentary, even with these words of defiance 
on his lips, he neglects not an occasion of doing good, and reproves 
his dingy brother's profaneness : Cato, he says, — his voice at once 
losing its military sostenuto, and assuming as the verse denotes, a time 
larghetto maestoso, and a tone mezzo piano, — Cato, he says, Don't 
swear, my lad ! What bewitching piety ! Qui5, talia fando, temperet, 
&LC. And the influence of this religious disposition in our hero is so 
great as even to extend its softening balm (" porrigine porci"*) to his 
follower and client ; as is seen in the next verse. What a moral and 
soothing lesson ! * * 

296. Tremble, great pouter! — ] The Pouter is a species of pigeon with 
inflated breast. Rubeta, therefore, (who is a great ornithologist, as 
the Reader, before he is done with him, will find him to be every thing 
else,) probably means to signify the reverend fowl who gave up part of 
his dovecot to the Canada Turtles above named. The allusion is 
probably to some personal peculiarity ; for further down the hero will 
be found to say of him : 

" Where in his book his swollen breast is seen." v. 333. Anon. 

lb. — great pouter ! — ] Some pretend that in this personage is 
shadowed out the writer of the following conjpliments : 

"Col. Rubeta has been repeatedly requested to publish articles confirmatory of the 
' Awful Disclosures,' but has always declined ; assigning as his reason the opposition 

of Mr. H , his partner, together with the fact that they bad a large number of 

subscribers in Canada, many of whom would be displeased. Some time since, while 

* Juvenal, ii. 80. 



CANTO FIRST. • 25 

One word : The Devil never name in vain. 

He wept ; he vow'd his wanton spleen to rein : 
Then ask'd for threepence. Scornfully I frown'd ; 
But, drawing from my hat Matthias bound, 3oo 

Take that, I cry'd, and think on him who said, 
Man was not born to live alone by bread. 
Was it, lean son of Ham, that thou might'st dine. 
We taught our modest press to lie and whine ? 
Avaunt ! Yet stay — ingratitude's a vice ; 305 

Go, beg an axe, and clear my door of ice. 



Mr. H was in Canada, the Colonel penned and published a few sentences which 

implied strong confidence in the truth of the * Disclosures.' It produced considerable 

sensation in Montreal ; so that three Protestant subscribers came to Mr. H- , and 

requested that their paper might be discontinued. What was the result ? Mr. H 

returned to N. Y., and soon the Commercial informed its readers that the ' Awful 
Disclosures ' were all a ' humbug.' " 

Lette)' in the N. Y. Journal of Commerce of Oct. 15, 1836, headed " Interview of 
[Rubeta] with the ex-nuns, Maria Monk and Frances Partridge." 

MoLCUs is supposed to be one of the three reverend gentlemen who 
subscribed the above amiabilities. Some will have it that the name 
{Molcus) is an anagram ! * * 

300. — Matthias — ] His work entitled the Impostures of Matthias^ 
which, it will presently be seen, is a great favorite with its immortal 
parent. * ^ 

301, 302. — and think on him who said, — Man was not born, etc.] The 
explanation of the seeming profaneness, but real piety, of this allusion, 
is reserved till a future occasion in the poem. We will only anticipate 
matters so far as to inform the reader that the allusion is characteristic, 
and that Rubeta is in thought, word, and deed, an angelic personifica- 
tion of the full beauty of holiness. * ^ 

303. — lean son of Ham — ] Rubeta 's at his jokes again. * * 
305, 306. — ingratitude's a vice ; — Go, beg an axe, and clear my door of 
ice.] This good as well as great man never permits sin when he can 
help it. How admirably does he remove from the fortunate object of 
his cl^arity even the plea of a want of occasion to evince his gratitude, 
by putting it into his power to repay by the labor of his hands part of 
4 



26 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

I said, and flew, not waiting for his thanks. 
Where bristled, dire in gowns, swoU'n Bruno's 

ranks. 
His cassock waving o'er them, flag defil'd ! 
'Gainst popes ungelt, and vestals great with 

child : 310 

But brandish'd first the terrors of my wand ; 
Whose worth now learn, nor deem Rubeta fond. 

O thou, who once, in likeness of a fowl, . 
Taught'st me to screech and hoot like any owl, 

the obligation he was under ! To the pure hearts of some men even 
the thought of sin is horrible. ** 

309. His cassock waving o'er them, Jlag de/ird!] How shall we recon- 
cile this imitation of Mohammed with the character of a Christian 
minister; unless we are to take the language of Rubeta as metapliori- 
cal ? Though perhaps the reproachful epithet which the hero bestows 
upon the cassock of his enemy may save the latter from the gi-osser 
imputation of following the practice of a false prophet; a kind of char- 
acter to which Rubeta is known to have a mortal antipathy : we say 
that this reproach may save him; for we never heard that the Arab 
was accused of defiling his breeches — even by wearing them, which 
is doubtless the imputation of our too severe, though pious hero. * * 

310. ^Gainst popes ungelt — ] See verse 332. * * 

310. — and vestals great with child : ] Allusion to the part which 
Bruno played in a matter with which nobody had any thing to do. 

* # 

313. O thou, who once, in likeness of a fowl.'] Commentators are at 
fault here. Some suppose it was the genius of Dulness in the form 
of the bird which is described as accompanying that divinity in the 
Dunciad : 

" a monster of a fowl. 

Something betwixt a Heideggre and owl : " * 
a construction at best illnatured. Others think it was a veritable bird, 
known as the turkeybuzzard, which Rubeta, "when exalted, as he de- 

* Bk. i. 289. 



CANTO FIRST. 27 

When, perch'd in attic through the livelong night, 3i5 
As morning broke I caught the notes aright, 

scribes himself to have been, both in body and mind, might easily mis- 
take for the genius mentioned in the preceding conjecture, or for his 
own espe'hial muse. A very reasonable supposition is that which would 
make it be the god of sleep, perched on his favorite fir, in the shape of 
the bird 

tJk ■ 

Which Caprimiilgus gods, men JVigMhawk call. 
Others affirm it was a peacock, and with much plausibility, since the 
notes of this bird are pitched very much to the same key as the air and 
recitative in the Sketches alluded to : while others, again, assert, that 
the object of the hero's invocation was nothing less than the goddess 
of wisdom herself. This deity is known to have lighted on a beech tree 
in the form of a vulture, to enjoy the contest of Hector and AjAx.f 
Now, as on that occasion she chose a metamorphosis which might be 
called appropriate, so in the present she would consistently assume the 
likeness of some bird of night, and of none so fitly as of the feathered 
symbol of wisdom. The second and the fourth conjecture have this 
objection, that we cannot conceive what should put a turkeybuzzard, or 
a peacock, up to such a freak as serenading. We therefore incline to 
the third opinion, while we decide for the last of all, and the more readily, 
as RuBETA, from his known erudition, would be very likely to make 
such an apostrophe ; which being granted, it is easy to conclude from 
the text, that the nature of the bird, whose form Athena honored on 
this particular occasion, was actually that of an owl, it being very un- 
likely that any other ' fowl ' would give lessons in the peculiar music of 
that venerable evening editor. 

If it should be objected to this supposition, that Rubeta, as an " evan- 
gelical Christian," and "professor of the Protestant faith," (see his Visit 
to Montreal,) would never condescend to solicit inspiration at the polluted 
source of heathenism, we adduce the example of Socrates. If this 
philosopher, whom men will have a practical if not « evangelical 
Christian," could order a cock to be sacrificed to iEscuLAPius, through 
the force of habit, or to teach his disciples the prudence of an outward 
deference to established customs, why may not the pius Rubeta, gov- 
erned by the habits of early scholastic education and daily reference 
to the poetical models of antiquity, have so far forgot himself, as to 
pay the homage of gratitude, or of filial piety, to an owl ? * * 

315. -- perch'd in attic through the livelong night,] As the worldly 

* HoM. //. xiv. 289. t Tb. vii. 58-61. 



28 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

And prick'd them down, so eager, in my Sketches, 
That overcome with joj I wet my breeches, 
Muse, aid me now ! and when I next play antic, 
I '11 howl till cats and dogs shall deem me frantic. 320 

'T was in the month when leaves begin to fall ; 
Sick of New York, I flew to Montreal : 
There standing at the monastery-gate. 
To the sad Mother thus deplor'd my fate : 
Mother unwed, who sleep'st secure from rape, 325 
Why should these walls let recreant Mary scape ? 
Till then our wharves made merry with my name, 
And prophet Matthews shadow'd Beloe's fame : 



circumstances of the hero are not such as to force him to such eleva- 
tions, it is to be supposed, to his credit, that he resorted thither, as 
to a known temple of the Muses, to lift himself as far as possible 
above this lower world and gather fancy from the rafters ; or per- 
haps, (as Nfma, when he descended to the grot and valley of Egeria,) 
to meet the owl his mistress, or to hold sweet converse with her through 
the skylight ; an interpretation which the preceding verses favor. 

# * 

322. Sick ofJVew York, IJlew, etc.] " In the course of a recent flying 
excursion through, efc." Visit to Montreal : JV. Y. Spectator, Oct. 8. 

Throughout the next forty verses of the episode, the fable of AristsBus 
is at times imitated from Georg. iv. 317 : 

" Pastor AristsBus fugiens Peneia Tempe, etc." 
327. — our wharves made merry with my name,] His meaning is, 
doubtless, that the hawkers of newspapers and penny ballads, (who 
are known to take their station at the steamboat-landings,) found a 
great profit in bringing his evening jokes before the public. Thus in 
Canto iL, the Lady Superior, speaking of Rubeta's return to New 
York, says : 

" Behold Manhattan pouring forth her sons : 
Her Wit returns, — her evening prince of puns! 



CANTO FIRST. 29 

All pedlers hawk'd me ; little girls at school 
Delighted spelt where knave was writ by fool. 330 
Now, woe is me ! with Monk what dunce may cope ? 
In foulmouth'd Scotch fell Bruno dares the Pope ; 
Where in his book his swollen breast is seen, 
While a green veil preserves the picture clean. 
Mother, I cannot live, and live unknown ! 335 

Make me a nun, or make thy case my own : 
Show me those holes where nymphs their playthings 

keep, 
I '11 write such stuff shall put the dogs to sleep. 
In her sick chamber heard the plaintive sound 
The mother-nun. Her daughters, rang'd around, 340 

Hark ! the green wharves his Visit hawk for sale ; 

The Visit, gin and oyster shops retail : 

Erin in Elm- street toasts the darling boy, 

And Chatham's orangewomen sob for joy." v. 152-157. 

# # 

328. And prophet Matthews shadow'' d Beloe's fame. ] Beloe, the 
author of a book called Herodotus, printed by the Harpers, and re- 
viewed by RuBETA. As this Beloe was the father of history, and very 
popular among scholars from the grateful peculiarity of his style, the 
celebrity of the history of Matthias, alias Matthews, may be gather- 
ed from the verse. * * 

332, 333. In foulmouth^d Scotch fell Bruno dares the Pope ; — Where in 
his book, etc.] What book this may be we cannot even imagine. 
There is a book on Popery, which bears in the front a clerical figure 
with chest protuberant, while a bit of green tissue-paper throws a 
grateful coolness on the subject and keeps the print and title from 
collapsing. But the author's name is not Bruno. * * 

339. In her sick chamber — The mother-nun — ] " She was suffering 
from an attack of rheumatism." — Visit, &c. 

340, 341. — her daughters, rang'd around — With ointments crown' d, etc.] 

— " Arranged in a manner that would gladden the sight of the N. Y. 



30 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

With ointments crown'd rich vases, (pleasing sight !) 
Deep-blue the print upon a field of white : 
NoiRCEiL and Grisceil, Plainchant and Serin, 
Their fair necks modest muffled to the chin : 
Chlorosis, Leucorrhea, Boiteuse lame, 345 

Pale Hydropique, Carotte with locks of flame, 
PuTAiN, and plump Pucelle ; this last a maid. 
The other once had blest a Bird's soft aid ; 
Both clad in black, a strap their foreheads bind. 
And their long tails turn graceful up behind ; 350 

Clystera, angel pow'r in time of need. 
And PhlebotExMNa, taught to cup and bleed. 
Mid these Fretille, with dewy eyes and lip, 
Told how the snow-girl made St. Francis trip, 
What time, as Hudibras, sweet poet, sung, 355 

The saint upon his staff a garland hung. 



College of Pharmacy. The jars and gallipots are all of the ancient 
translucent dark-blue and white china, of the same size and pattern, 
rendering the shelves perfectly uniform." — Exam, of the Hotel Dieu : 
JV. Y. Sped. Oct. 8. 

348. — a Birds soft aid;] A Mrs. Bird advertises in the New- 
York papers as a midwife. * * 

349, 350. Both clad in black, a strap their foreheads bind, — Jlnd their 
long tails turn graceful up behind;] " The dress is of black bombazine, 
■with ample skirt, and bishop sleeves ; the neck dress consists of a large 
square white linen collar, reaching up to the chin ; to this is attached 
a strap passing across the top of the head, to which the bandeau is 
fastened. This is a white linen band bound round the forehead, etc. 
The skirts are turned up, etc." — Rub. on "the costume of the Black 
Nuns." Visit, &c. 



CANTO FIRST. 31 

Charm'd with the lay, the pale nymphs urge their 
toil, 
Flake the firm wax, and drop the liquid oil : 
When hark ! again a faint and distant moan 
Amaz'd they hear : St. Francis, shield thy own ! 360 
(This told Clystera once, please understand, 
While colic-rack'd I bless'd her ready hand.) 

Ver. 360. — St. Francis, shield thy own /] It is by no means to be attrib- 
uted to the ignorance or carelessness of Rubeta, that he makes the nuns 
affirm themselves to be of an order to which they could not belong; 
he describes the scene precisely as it was related to him, (as he de- 
clares in the next couplet.) The terrified sisters, having their heads full 
of St. Francis and his snow-girl, just at the moment they were thrown 
into confusion by the moaning of our hero at the grate, probably fancied 
for the time that they were really under his protection, and called upon 
him instead of their patroness, or some other saint; or perhaps they 
were willing, in consideration of his purity, to invoke his aid against 
any danger which might threaten their own ; a contingence which is 
always the first to occur to the imagination of elderly maiden ladies, on 
the slightest alarm from any unknown cause. Let us observe, once for 
all, Rubeta never is ignorant, never makes mistakes; he is not more 
the pius Mneas than he is the nOATMHTIS 0AT22ET2 ; and the 
Reader, before he has done with him, will cheerfully add to these dis- 

vir Romanorum eruditissimus." * 

361, 362. This told Clystera once, please understand, — While, etc.] 
This explanation the prince appears to make, lest his friends or subjects 
should suspect him of invention in a detail of circumstances which he 
could not know from his own observation. So the king of Ithaca to 
his brother island-king and the Phjeacians, in the 12th book of the 
Odyssey. It is not improbable, indeed, that our hero had in mind the 
precaution of his fellow sage. The fitness of the occasion which the 
ministering sister took to communicate these particulars, like the curtain- 

* Plurimos hie, says Quinctilian, (X. 1,) Phirimos hie libros et doetissimos 
composuit, (Matthias, Maria Monk, etc.,) peritissimus linguce LatincB, (see Motto to 
Tales and Sketches ; hear him in his speeches, lectures, etc.,) and so on with the rest 
of the sentence, which with but little change may be applied not less to the most 
learned of Americans, than to the most accoviplished of the Romans. * * 



32 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Then Boiteuse first with step uneven came, 
Gaz'd on my face, and while I blush'd for shame, 
A saint! she cry'd, — despite his heathen clothes. 365 
He weeps like Job; just such St. Joseph's nose: 
Lo, Judas' mouth ! and chaste Susanna's eye ! 
Now God be prais'd ! Good father, touch my 
thigh. 

Haste ! lead him in ! I heard the Mother scream : 
'T is he ! the ass foretold me in my dream. 370 

Quick at the sound the portal opens wide ; 
Pour forth the nuns, and range on either side. 
Lo, in their midst, our saintly presence spread ! 
Mark the staid sisters smiling as we tread ! 



conferences of Calypso and Ultsses, reflects great credit on her 
clinical judgment, as nothing we should suppose could be more salutary, 
or at least more grateful, than keeping the head amused while operating 
elsewhere. * * 

367. Lo^ Judas' mouth /] The simplicity of the poor nun, or the con- 
fusion of her joy, must have made her canonize a figure in the Lord's 
Supper, that was never intended for such Catholic h(mor. So, above, 
she misuses heathen for profane. * * 

367. — ScrsANNA — ] Probably she of that name known as the chaste. 
This famous woman being of the file of Catholic saints, her picture, 
like those of St. Job and St. Joseph, doubtless adorned the convent. 
The sister's comparison shows us another point wherein our hero is 
decidedly superior to his archetype: Dido found to her sorrow no 
such eye in ^neas ; nor does the Roman poet anywhere character- 
ize him as Castus. * * 

368. JVow God be praised! Good father, touch my thigh.] The sim- 
plicity of the poor recluse is quite affecting, when, judging from the 
evangelical air of our new ^Eneas, that he could be nothing less than 
a saint from Heaven, she requests him to touch her crippled limb, with 
full confidence he would restore it whole. * * 



CANTO FIRST. 33 

So ebb'd the flood when Moses stretched his rod, 375 
And Israel march'd amid the surge drjshod. 

Then clos'd their ranks behind me, two abreast, 
Their tails let down in honor of their guest : 
Secure as Pisa's belfry, on one side, 
Sails BoiTEUSE in the van, delighted guide : 380 

And thus the black procession took its way. 
Like corpse and train, to where the abbess lay. 
And as that train, w^hen reach'd the place of pray'r. 
Spread their long file, and leave the coffin bare. 
Its tainted dust unfit for worms to eat 385 

Till some big Bruno sanctifies the meat ; 



Ver. 378. Their tails let down in honor of their guest :] " While in the 
nunnery, I observed that the skirt is always turned up, and fastened 
under the waist behind with a hook and eye. We saw them after- 
ward" (not the hook and eye, but the nuns) ^^ going in procession to the 
cathedral, and then the skirts, I believe, were 7iot thus turned up, — 
but," adds the cautious witness, with that particularity which the im- 
portance of the case demanded, " but am not quite certain." 
Visit, Sfc. 

Two of the old commentators, Gulielmus BRUNOLiESius, and the 
venerable Tardiventus, remarking upon this and similar passages of 
Rubeta's illustrious composition, very illnaturedly observe, that the 
historian must have been born a ladies' dressmaker, or a man-milliner I 

Why not a sage ? Sapiens operis optimus omnis est opifex solu^.* 

# * 

365. — unfit for worms to eat — TSll some big Bruno sanctifies the meat;"] 

This seeming pleasantry, when speaking of one of the most solemn, 
and, with those of the Episcopal faith, most beautiful and touching offices 
of our religion, is not to be translated into forgetfulness of character on 
the part of the pious Rubeta, nor does it argue his character to be not 
really pious. When, at the conclusion of this story, the causes shall be 
discovered which he had to hold in hatred the reverend Bruno, it will 

* HoR. Serm. I. Sat. iv. 132, 153. 

5 



34 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

So wheePd the sisters to the left and right, 

Thus set me naked in the abbess' sight : 

But first these orbs, which nothing scapes, had seen, 

Turn'd up again those tails of bombazine ! 390 

Then from her couch the pensive mother rose ; 
A fine old lady, with a Roman nose. 
A comely bird sat on her dexter thumb, 
Which, marvel new ! was nothing less than dumb, 



be seen, that he speaks on this occasion from the bitterness of his 
hostility to a particular individual, not from levity. Hence, the e 'S>iXoT 
riiv T^oat^iffiv e-roTa. ris Iffrlv * is nothing forgotten by our serious f poet. 
Besides, supposing the pleasantry real, it is to be remembered that the 
hero, though pious, and chaste, and prudent, and dignified, is not the less 
a man of wit ; and wit is a sore tempter. * * 

388. — set me naked in the abbess'' sight :] Not to be interpreted 
literally : for, supposing the sisters could have been guilty of so un- 
maidenly decorum as to strip Rubeta to his nature, and supposing 
that the Lady Superior were so tolerant of indelicacy as to look upon 
a sight so grim, yet we have, in the known purity of the hero, " a sure 
guarantee" (as the American's advertisers say) of the propriety of the 
exhibition. He would have resisted to the utmost such an attempt 
upon his delicacy. — Doubtless Rubeta is speaking with poetic license; 
for, as he had before said that the coffin was left bare to express that 
the company withdrew from its immediate neighbourhood, so he might 
with perfect propriety declare, of himself, that he was set naked in the 
sight of the abbess, when sexton Boiteuse no longer hid his front, 
and the mourners covered up no more his rear. Seriously, we do 
not believe that Rubeta was ever seen naked by any thing in his life, 
except one old midwife and a nurse 4 * * 

390. Turn'd up again those tails of bombazine ! ] See first part of 
the annotation on v. 378. * * 

* Arist. Poet. cap. 15, ed. Tyrwhitt. Oxon. 1794. 

t 'H filv oZv kiroTTO I'ia t^ rpay (1)6 la , fxi^pi n6vov ixiT^ov, fxtra \6yov (it fit] an 
elvai cTrov6ai(i)v i] Ko\ov9r} a ev . 7Z>. cap. 12. 

t The Editor appears to forget that in the 4lh Canto Rubeta is said to have had 
tioo midwives, and hvo nurses : therefore he should have said, except two old midwives 
and a couple of nurses. — Publishers. 



CANTO FIRST. 35 

But said his creed, and chanted aves high, 395 

Devout as thou, psalm-singing Hale, or I. 
This to Chlorosis' wrist she now transferr'd : 
Go, Father Richards, go then, minion bird ! 
Then stroking down his green but rev'rend head. 
She kiss'd his bill, and turn'd to me, and said : 400 

Hail, holy man ! for though no saint I trow, 
As BoiTEUSE deems thee, (this thy breeches show,) 
Yet purer ne'er rapt Raphael drew, or Guido, 
Than thou I think — Said Father Richards, Credo — 
So meek those angel eyes ! and if Hope's pow'r 405 
Smile not to mock us in this pregnant hour, 

Ver. 395, 396. But said his creed, and chanted aves high, — Devout as thou, 
psalm-singing Hale, or L] This is not the first green friar recorded 
in history, Par son caquet digne d'etre en convent:* the great Ver- 
Vert precedes him, 

Qui " n'etait point de ces fiers perroquets 
Que Pair du si^cle a rendus trop coquets ; 

* * * # * 
Ver- Vert etait un perroquet devot, 
Une belle ame innocemment guid^e ; 
Jamais du mal il n'avait eu I'idee, 
Ne disait done un immodeste mot : 
Mais en revanche il savait des cantiques, 
Des Oremus, des colloques mystiques ; 

# # * * # 
Finalement Ver- Vert savait par cceur 
Tout ce que sait une m^re de chceur." f 

39S. Go, father Richards / — ] The reverend father is mentioned also in 
the prose Visit to Montreal : " Father Richards is a short fat person- 
age, has a mild blue eye, and is exceedingly fair-spoken." The green 
coat, long tail, and a deeper color of the eye, are mere trifles, which 
doubtless Rubeta could not attend to in his " Visit." * * 

* Gresset. Ver-Vert, Chant I. t lb. Chant II. * * 



36 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Thou art — Thou art indeed! O blessed sight! 
The long-ear'd cow that low'd to me last night. 
Speak ! Who art thou ? Thou canst not be profane ? 
Yet never saint bore iron-pointed cane. 4io 

Mother, (I said,) thy beak proclaims thee grand : 
Mark then this rod ; feel ; touch it with thy hand. 
Naught upon earth but has a value given : 
This paltry stick has brush'd Jove's belt in heaven. 

Jesu ! and hath no hair ? None, as you 

see 415 

Cry'd father Richards, Benedicite! 

Ver. 408. The long-ear*d cow that low^d to me last night] Strange igno- 
rance of nature and natural history this, which metamorphoses an ass 
into a cow ! But what should a poor secluded vestal know of beasts 
and sexes ? Perhaps, however, it was the confusion of her joy at hav- 
ing found, as she thought, the explication of the wonderful dream she 
afterwards recounts ; for we see that the excited Mother even forgets 
her age, her rheumatism, and'her dignity, and grows earnest : " Speak ! 
Who art thou ? efc." And, indeed, she had already specified the beast 
of the vision as a regular ass : 

" Haste ! lead him in ! I heard the mother scream : 
'T is he ! the ass foretold me in my dream." 

We may observe, to those inclined to laugh, that the ass is a very 
sacred animal. Not to mention Balaam's, Homer has compared Ajax 
with one of the kind, and Rubeta compares himself presently, (in the 
2d Canto,) with the same patient creature ; while it is noticeable, that, as 
the abbess seems to intend no disparagement to her visitor, by resem- 
bling him to such an animal, so Rubeta imagines none ; while the hero 
at once resents, as far as his native mildness and cultivated gallantry 
will permit him, the apparent slight upon his cane, of whose wondrous 
properties he has given the world so astounding a description in his 
Visit. * * 

415. Jesu! —] One of the ordinary exclamations of a Catholic devotee, 
and quoted as such by the hero. Therefore he does not here depart 



CANTO FIRST. 37 

Yes, (I resum'd,) this staff which shagg'd with 
broom 
Help'd Labor's hand to reach Arachne's loom, 
A mighty witch swept on it through the sky, 
And touch'd those things which Locke could only 

spy. 420 

When the young Thames receiv'd her in his bed. 
My grandsire from its stall in secret led 
The wooden steed, — 't was stabled in a shed, — 
And bound him, with a horseshoe, o'er the hatch, 
To guard from evil power his mother's thatch. 
But when my sire was born, the times were 

chang'd ; 425 

Horseshoes were iron, hags at pleasure rang'd ; 

from his character, though, like Mother Needham,* he always rejects 
such words from his own use. * * 

420 And touch'd those things which Locke could only spy.] So. in the 
moon. Mr. Locke is the author of that very ingenious and well- written 
fiction entitled "Discoveries in the Moon, &c."; a story which has 
been more generally and deservedly popular than any thing of the kind 
in the present century. * * 

421 — Thames — ] A river in New England : Youn^, I suppose, as 
the titles of Father and Old are appropriated to the Thames of Old 
England. 

We may as well observe here, that the account of Rubeta's family- 
broomstick appears to have been suggested by the derivation of the 
sceptre of Agamemnon in the Iliad : 

To fjuv "lI(pcna-ros xx/£t rsv^av. 

''H(pciifr6s juuvt ». r. X. 

and so on. ii. 101-108. ** 

* "A matron of great fame/' (in the days of Pope,) '^ and very religious in her 
way 5 whose constant prayer it was, that she might get enough by her profession to 
leave it off in time, and make her peace with God." See the 324th line of the 1st Book 
of the Dunciad. * * 



38 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

The steed no longer from the lintel swung, 

But danc'd the loins whence afterward I sprung. 

Mvself next sat him ; with such infant grace, 

Tears of delight bath'd either parent's face ; 430 

My father strain'd my mother in his joy. 

And sobb'd, Ah ! let our next be like this boy ! 

Such my ancestral staff. Its iron round 
Our well-pole's spiral hook once trimly bound : 
Then, wroth black Bella nick'd thy belt of brick, 435 
Thou, chill CiSTERNA, broke the ashen stick! 

What present honor waits this rod divine 
Yourself shall witness. Mother, ere you dine : 
Behold RuBETA ! whose facetious name 
Keeps six-and-twenty of the tongues of Fame 440 

Ver. 439. Behold Bubeta ! whose facetious name — Keeps six-and- 
twenty, etc.] It has always been permitted to great men to blow their 
own trumpets occasionally, without any misapplication of wind. Thus, 
when RuBETA couples his patrician name with facetiousness, and tells 
the Lady Superior, that his glory is daily sounded through the 26 states 
and territories of the Union, he does no more than the son of Laertes, 
who boasts that everybody knows his tricks, and tells Alcinous that 
his glory and the stars are quite intimate : 

'Av^^euToiffi f^iXa, xu) fjbiv kX'ios ov^ecvov 'iKit • * 

or than he whom the hero more particularly resembles : 

Sum plus iEneas, 

fama super sethera notus : f 

or than, in fine, the most spirited of all animals, whose gallant Cock-ee- 
doodle-doore-e ! heard at all hours by his admiring dames, were it 
translated from the Gallic into English, would read thus : 

» Odyss. ix. 19. Oxon. 1797. t ^n. i. 378. 



CANTO FIRST. 39 

Wagging incessant : on each daily mail 

The fowl rides cockhorse and sings out the tale. 

From Neptune's darling town, (whose jet green 

charms 
Pout on his breast and swell within his arms,) 
Dower'd w ith fleets, array'd in current gold ; 445 

Whose bricks, through fools and fires, wax never old ; 

Lo Chanticleer ! whose throat all mortals know, 
And heav'n-rais'd tail tells how the winds should blow : 
while on the other hand it may be cited as a trait of modesty to which 
neither Ulysses, nor ^neas, nor Alectryonides, can lay any claim, 
Rubeta's appropriating so small a number of the tongues of a creature 
who is known, by the testimony of Virgil, to have as many as she has 
feathers. * * 

443, 444. — whose yet green charms — Pout on his breast and swell 
within his arms,] New York lies on a broad and beautiful bay, which 
spreads two magnificent, we had almost said unrivalled, rivers, one on 
either side of the growing city, embracing as it were this buxom nymph, 
whose bulk swells out fuller and fuller to the margin of the waves which 
fold her in. — The metaphor, by the by, is quite in character : the gal- 
lant RuBETA is a great admirer of what Pompey calls the fair sex. 
Thus he daintily compared the polar lights, {January lith, 1837,) to the 
blushes on a maiden^s cheeks. He and the amorist Bennet, we are 
afraid, will yet come to fisticuffs : 

« Him should he meet, the bellowing war begins : 
Their eyes flash fury ; to the hollow'd earth. 
Whence the sand flies, they mutter bloody deeds,. 
And groaning deep, th' impetuous battle mix : 
While the fair heifer, balmy-breathing, near, 
Stands kindling up their rage." * * * 
445. — in current gold ;] A very illnatured reflection on the part of 
RuBETA, and but little consistent with his gentle character. What 
though the toilette of Manhattan is still kept in her pocket, or glitters 
in a circulating medium, shall not Time transfer it to her neck and 
bosom, and set it out to sparkle in her ears ? Thou art too impatient, 
generous hero : when men shall have lost the habit of acquiring, and 

* Thomson's S^pn'n^, 800 - 805. 



40 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Where princes, paper-crown'd, drive divers trades, 
And half the vromen, Tappan sajs, are jades, 

shall have grown disgusted with the care of hoarding, when boys shall 
be sent to school to get imbued with a love of literature and science, 
and not to learn the pence-table, you shall have in modern Tyre one or 
two domicils that would not do discredit unto Boston, and see great 
public edifices rising from your walks as thick as mercers' and linen- 
drapers' shops are now.* * * 

* To be serious, there are greater evils attending on this absorbing avarice, which 
characterizes the exclusively mercantile community of New York, than merely a 
neglect of good taste, whether in literature or in architecture. Every generous quality, 
all that elevates the soul, is fast merging in the bottomless gulf of covetousness. I 
shall be excused, I know, by at least one class of readers, for quoting the following 
superb passage from a well-known teacher of excellence, where, leaving his less im- 
portant subject, the sublime in writing, he deviates for a moment, (though not widely, 
as the two are intimately connected,) to correctness and elevation of moral sentiment. 
No overdrawn picture does he present of evils which are rankling at this very day, 
especially in our social system ; and like all, the little all, alas ! that we have left of 
that great and philosophic spirit, the instruction which it gives us cannot be too often 
or too diligently meditated. Thus it is : 

'H yd^ (pi^o^ptjuaria, irpbi rjv anavvES diT\t}aT<i>s ijStj voaovfitv, Kol »/ ^i\r)5ovia SovXa- 
yuiyovai, //aXAov Si (wj uv clnoi rtj) KarafivOi^ovciv, avravipovi tjStj rovi Plovs' <l>i- 
Xapyvpia ixiv vdar^fia fxiKpoTTOibv, (piKribovia 5' aytwiGTarov. (Could any thing be more 
apposite to the moral condition of our commercial metropolis, even were it written 
but yesterday, than this vigorous and beautiful sentence ? But to continue the sublime, 
though for us, to whom, for many reasons. New York is almost as dear as though 
we were born there, melancholy citation :) Ou ifi £j(<a Xoyi^dfjievos evptlv, toy oi6v re 
n\ovTov aopicTTOv eKTuifiaavrai, to 6^ aXtjOiarepov direiv iKdeidaavrai, ra avufv)} Tolrrca 
KOKo. £(j raj 4'^X^^ hjJ^^v iireiaidvTa fifi napa^i^eaOai " UKoXovOeT yap rw a/<frp(f) n\o{jT(^ 
Kal aKoXdoTco avvrj^ijiivri koX iaa, (paal, (iaivovaa TroXureAeta, Kai afxa dvoiyovros iKcivov 
TU)v n6\zu)v KOL o'lKUiv Tof tladhovs, els «J iyi^aivti, Ka\ avvoiKi^Erai ' ^povlaavTa 6t ravTU ev 
TOtj jSt'otj, veoTTOTToieirei, Kara, tovs co^oiij, Kal radius ytv6fitva trepi TCKvoirouav ***** a 
y£vvio(ji Kal rvfov kuI rpv^fiv, ov v6da iavrdv yivvfi(iaTa. dWd Kal navv yvfitjia. 'Eav 
bl Kal Tohrovs rig tov uXoOtov rovi iKydvovs els fjXiKiav e\6e7v idajj, rajf^tuis Seandras rats 
xpv^ats ivTiKTOvariv ditapairr/Tovs, vfipiv Kal Trapavofiiav Kal dvaia^vvriav. Tavra yap 
ovT(i)i dvayKt] yiveaOai, Kal firjKhi tovs dv6p(l)nov{ dva^Xineiv, /iTjdf iripa frJuTis eTvai riva 
Xdyov ' dXAd toiovtwv iv K{jKX(fi Te\caiovpye2adai Kar^ SXiyov twv Plojv rfiv dia^dopaVf 
(pdiveiv Se Kal KaraiiapaiveaOai rd xj/vj^iKa fieyiOr], Kal d^tjXa yivtaQai, ^viKa tu dvijTa iavrdv 
fiipr] KqvSvrjTa iK9avfidC,oiEv, irapivrts av^eiv t' dddvara. Ov yap inl Kpiaei jiiv nj Sc- 

a Though using the edition of Bishop Pearce, as the reader will have observed, I have 
not hesitated to omit the vicious interpolation or corruption which that excellent editor 
retained in his text j to wit, ivi?.£gov 'iv n, which means just nothing in the place where 
it occurs, and is in all probability what Pearce suspected it to be, a mere gloas by some 
grammarian. For this, Tollius indeed has given as a substitute IcKa'^zvi^xv r; ; a very 
good conjectural emendation. But the text is sufficiently complete without it. ** 



CANTO FIRST. 41 

(Arthur, you know, — that shirt-and-trowsers Monk, 
Who loves cross-breeding, but abhors a punk ;) 45o 



Ver. 446. — fools — ] Namely, the municipal council. See, back, 
V. 25-28. ** 

447. WTiere princes, paper-croion''d, drive divers trades.] The M Y, 
.American terms the merchants of Manhattan merchant-princes! (See 
one of the numbers of that journal, somewhere in the first or second 
week of January, 1837.) This misapplication of a title which was prop- 
erly enough applied to the traders of a city where they were indeed 
princes by birth and rank, though merchants by occupation, is, we are 
aware, merely the result of ignorance, — being, no doubt, the King's 
English for princely merchants ; yet it is not so inconsequential as one 
might at first suppose, who knew not to what extent the citizens of 
these United States are governed by the editors, bad, worse, and 
worst, of their multitudinous papers. To confine ourselves to New 
York : What right has the name of prince to be applied as a commen- 
datory title of dignity to trading citizens ? It is such indiscreet coax- 
ing, the nursery-dialect of grown children like Petronius, which 
pampers the pride already too big for leadingstrings. Men Avhom we 
remember to have seen, thirty or five-and-thirty years ago, be it more 
or less, with scarcely a rag to their back, now drive their carriages ; 
much to their honor, did they do it modestly ; but it really makes the 

KaaQcii ovk uv em tZv SiKaiwv kuI >caXwv iXtvOspos Kat vyi^s uv Kpirfig yivoiro ' avdyKrj 
yap T(a Sa>po66K(i) to. oiKtia fxiv (paiveaOai KnXa Kal SiKaia. "Onov de I'ljxibv iKaarov tovs 
bXovs rj^t] (iiovs htKatJixol ^pafievovci, koI aWoTpiwv Qrjpai. QavaTWV, koX eveSpai Siadr/Kuv, 
TO 8' h Tov navTos Ktpiaivtiv wvovyitQa Trji ^^v^rj;, tKacToi Trpoj t^j <f>iko-)(^prijxaTiai 
hvSpanoBicyiivoi, apa Srj ev Tjf TocravTrj Xotjutxp tov fiiov 6ia(pdopa BoKoi'ittv etl iXev6ep6v 
Tiva KpiTTlv tS)v [ieya\ti)Vf t] BirjKovToov npbs tov aliova, m^iKacTov ano\£\ei(p9ai, Kal ixfi 
KaTap^aipemd^eaOai npbg t^j tov nXeovcKrav iTnOvjxias ; a- ***** "OXwj ku] 6anavbv 
£(pr]v tivuL tZv vvv ysvvuixivwv ^vamv ttjv paQvixiav, |f, ttAjjv 6\iywv, tt&vtcs iyKaTa[iioviiev, 
OVK a'XAws TTOvovvTSi t) OLVoXan^avovTEi, ti ixr) inaivov Kal fjSovrji 'ivzKa, aWa fxfi ttjs 
^^Xou Kal Tifxrjs OL^ias iroTi w^fXftaj. 

Long, de Sublim. xliv. : ex ed. Pearcii. 

If an}' person of the class we have alluded to shall have derived from the reading 
of this long quotation, so deserving to be writ in characters of gold, as much melan- 
choly satisfaction as we have found in transcribing it, we are amply repaid for the 
labor it has cost us. * * 

a We copy the homely, and, as it seems to us, somewhat misplaced, remark of Toixius 
upon this clause ; for the same reason for which we have given the entire passage from 
LoNGiNUs, its sad applicability to the subject of our note: — " Proprie est largitione, ab 
iis qui magistratum in comitiis petunt, et pecunia quidem, corrumpi ; ita ut Catones ro- 
pulsum ferant, Vatinii vero et Nonii Strum© in sollis sedeant curulibus." * * 

6 



42 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

From this new Tyre, which bounteous Heaven has 

blest 
Above all good w^ith journals, (mine the best,) 

decrepid genius of monarchy laugh, to see them ducking through re- 
publican streets in an open jaunty vehicle, (apt representative of 
their fortune's frail creation and existence,) with a negro on the box in 
tinselled livery. Were this decoration worn that one might tell the 
man from the master, it would doubtless be serving a useful purpose ; 
but, alas ! the heart, the heart, — there is no republicanism there ! Those, 
who in that goodly city have most the cant of democracy on their lips, 
would barter soul and body to lord it for an hour over their poorer 
fellows. Hence many, who cannot do it there, live abroad. 

This rampant pride, moreover, engenders a bitter spirit of envy in the 
less fortunate members of the same class of society. I declare to God, 
I have been the unwilling hearer of more detraction and petty defama- 
tion, within these three or four last years, than I have ever heard in all 
the rest of my life put together. Miserable worms ! when to-morrow 
shall see you in your coffin, and he, the humble friend you pass unre- 
cognised to-day, may void his spittle on your livid cheek, and not a 
pulse throb at the indignity ! 

448. — half the women, Tatfan says, are jades.] See the impartial 
favors of the notorious Magdalen Report of Mr. Arthur Tappan, who, 
it seems, is no friend to monopoly in bad reputation. New York, good 
Arthur, is, in one respect, as licentious as any city in Christendom ; 
and, in the same respect, as nakedly so as any in Great Britain : * 
and that is quite enough for the present, without damning by anticipa- 
tion the souls of our wives and daughters. 

* — as nakedly so as any in Great Britain :'\ It is only London or Liver- 
pool can present such a scene as our modern Suburra^ does from sunset until nearly 
after midnight. America and Great Britain may make it their peculiar boast, 
that, in their favored seats of freedom, Impurity is permitted to hunt down her victims^ 
while elsewhere the position is reversed. And this is said for what ? That the police 
may earn their wages. Little does it matter indeed whether rogues and strumpets 
pursue iheir nice vocation in the lighted promenade or in an alley ; but it is of very 
much matter that our sons and daughters should not witness it. Much of the good- 
ness of one half of the world depends upon its being ignorant of the wickedness of 
the other. 

a Broadway. 

totaque impune Suburra 

Pennisit sparsisse oculoa jam candidus umbo. 

Pers. v. '&2. eil. Casaub. Loud. 1647. * * 



CANTO FIRST 43 

Rapt on the wings of steam, for promis'd fame 
A new goldfinder in your sinks of shame, 
I come ! Prepare. Dead babe hope not to hide, 455 
Nor friar's sandal, where this wand is guide ! 
Aided by which, shall pierce your very stones 
My eagle eyes, and find those little bones ! 

Ver. 450. WTio loves cross-breeding — ] Arthur, though he advocates 
association of the whites and the blacks on equal terms of fellowship, 
denies that he is for direct amalgamation by marriage. It is of no 
consequence, Arthur; the latter would be sure to follow, could the 
former ever take place ; as, to be serious. Heaven never meant it should. 
There seems to be a prohibition set by nature on the mixture of the 
two races : for, whether it be that, with the present notions of society, 
none but the debauched or degraded of either sex among the whites 
will cohabit with the opposite color, it is very certain that the offspring 
of such a union is usually marked by every vicious propensity. The 
mulatto, wherever found, is almost invariably worthless ; remarkable 
indeed for personal comeliness, but, on the other hand, as conspicuous 
for moral deformity. 

454. A new goldfinder — ] As successor to Monk, the original con- 
tractor. * * 

458. My eagle eyes — ] 

" We now reentered the convent, and ascended to the next story, examining every 
apartment vi'ith the most deliberate and eagle-eyed attention." Visit, etc. 

The second member of the verse alludes to those monstrously ab- 
surd as well as infamous stories, which, it appears from Rubeta's pub- 
lished visit, are told by Monk and Company, 

" Infantum, 

Quos dulcis vitse exsortes, et ab ubere raptos, 
Abstulit atra dies et funere mersit acerbo : " * 
the truth of which the luminous Rubeta thought it worth while to in- 
vestigate ; though the book, it was very evident, could be only such as 
a salacious imagination would put together, or a licentious curiosity 
would read. Although the filthy publication, which Rubeta and his 
reverend coadjutors at Montreal amused themselves with reading at 
breakfast, (see Visitf &c.,) we have indeed not seen, having a suf- 

* ViRG. ^77. vi. 427. ** 



44 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Out spake the abbess then : Thou canst not mean 
To wreak such wrong ! thou art not so obscene. 460 
What, thou ! so pure ! so soft ! can Monk's bad 

page 
Inspire thj breast with more than Tappan's rage ? 
Heed him not, daughters ; women's things he loves. 
O sir ! not eagle's are those ejes, but dove's. 

Njmph of the cells, (thus gravely we reply'd,) 465 
Measure not wholes by marking one slant side. 
Is 't not our journal's patent? Touch it not. 
Nor see men's eyes in glances they have shot. 
Like the loose sands on ocean's hither verge, 
Which shift their surface with each beating surge ; 47o 



ficiently good appetite for our morning's meal without the stimulus of 
such a viand, we can safely assure the reader it is only fit to be burned ; 
common sense, and a knowledge of nature, equally pronouncing it ab- 
surd. The sexual vices of communities of women living under the 
peculiar restraints of conventual life are, for very sufficient reasons, 
confined in all ages to those which Dtderot thought fit to make known, 
in one of his filthy novels. (The tribades of ancient times, of whom 
St. Paul speaks in his epistle to the Romans,* sufficiently illustrate 
my meaning.) They are among the secret execrable indulgences which 
will defile many in every age, and which, as they can never be pre- 
vented, it were better never to mention. We only add, that none but 
a man utterly regardless of the moral consequences of his actions, or, 
what is as bad in the conductor of a public press, incapable of foreseeing 
them, would have taken notice of such a book in a newspaper, whose 
columns are as often spelled over by the young and uninstructed, as by 
the imbecile and aged. But the gage of this person's moral capacity 
will be further seen in the course of the poem. 

* Ata TovTO irapiSuKcv avTov{ b Qtbs tli ndOrj an/xiai ' alrt yap OrfXtiai dvTwv yHT' 
^Wa^av Tijv ^vffiKfjv ;\;p^ff£i' eh rfiv napa <pijaiv. — Cap. i. 26. * * 



CANTO FIRST. 45 

A host of little shells now greet the day, 

Which the next billow, refluent, bears away; 

So, varying still, th' inconstant eyes but show 

Passion's, or simple feeling's, ebb and flow. 

But the hoar cliffs which beetle o'er the deep, 475 



Firm-bas'd and hu£:e, immortal horror kee 



■t)^9 



P 



What though their sides give back the sun's broad 

glare, 
The wear of wave, the waste of time is there ; 
Jagged and grim, they heave a frightful form, 
Frown o'er the flood, and seem to dare the storm. 48o 
Such be the lips : there grave the passions' rule 
And habit of the thoughts man knave or fool. 
Yes, mark these lines: here Pistol's courage lies; 
And Nym's decision here, though blink the eyes. 



Ver. 481, 482. Such he the lips : there grave the passions^ rule — jlnd 
hahit of the thoughts man knave or fool.] Rdbeta says this in pure 
modesty, as he is speaking of the stone which guards his own capacious 
orifice, and that of men of equal grandeur. For ordinary mortals, the 
comparison of their lips to a couple of wave-eaten cliffs would be more 
sublime than illustrative. * * 

By permission of the Editor, the Corrector would remark, that the 
application of the morality of this figure is scarcely worthy of the hero. 
If we were to qualify the phrase concerning the tyranny of the pas- 
sions by adding the eipithet petty, or vulgar, or mean, and for habit of the 
thoughts read the habit of not thinking, the comparison would be 
spoiled indeed, but the likeness would be better. Let us try our hand 
at it: 

So on these lips the pettier passions^ rule, 

And driveling dulness, stamp both knave and fool. 



46 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Yet fear not, madam, therefore : what though 

brave ? ^ 485 

RuBETA vs^ars not to destroy, but save ; 
(Women at least, — except bald Bruno's gang ; 
For Sense and Learning, let them ware my fang !) 
For, while they pay, I love my fellow-men. 
My gods are glory, money, and the pen. 49o 

Those drove me here, to feed my purse and pride ; 
And so I write, I care not on which side. 
As the same river floats both ships and logs ; 
As the same physic purges men and dogs ; 
As the same fly his lithe proboscis dips 495 

In ordure or in dew of ladies' lips ; 



Ver. 490. My gods are glory, etc.] In his passion for glory, and the 
perils he endured by land and by water to gratify it in this particular 
instance, Rubeta is a very Cyrus. The passage of the historian and 
philosopher, which marks in brief the qualities personal and mental of 
the son of CambyseSjIs so perfectly applicable to our own greater hero, 
the reviver at once and concentrated essence in his own person of 
ancient virtue, that we copy it for the gratification of the readers of the 
Vision, who will think the honey of the Attic bee is well bestowed on 
this darling of the Muses, this bud of Venus and nursling of the Graces.* 

^vvat ^l K-vpos (Rubeta) Xiytraif xai a^trai tri xtti vZv ii'To ruv (ia^Sd^av 
(i. e. in his journals,) e T ^ o 5 fih xdXkiffroSf "^ v ^^^ ii v Ti <p t X a v 6 ^ a>- 
ir r a r s i »«' (piKofiec^iffrciroS) xoci tpiXorifioraros, ei a- r e 
T a V r a utv tt v v a v a, r Xri v a t, -je d v r a ^i xivtvvov v vr fi i 7' 
y a I, rev \ tt a, i v t7 tr 6 a, i 'i v i x a . — Xen. Cyrop. i. 2., erf. Weise : 12mo. 
Tauchnitius. 

491. Those etc.] Those, the former deities, ambition and avarice, 
urged me on to this adventure, and " the pen," the love of scribbling, 
will put me up to describing it ; and little does it matter which side I 
take, for « As, efc." ** 

* Expressions of Aristophanes. 



CANTO FIRST. 47 

So when my need requires, to gull the town, 
Both truth and falsehood equally go down. 
Madam, the meaning of which Latin is, 
Rubeta's cause is yours and yours is his : 500 

Search you he must ; this honor bids him do ; 
But whether he shall find depends on you. 



Ver. 497, 498. So when my need requires, to gull the town, — Both truth 
and falsehood equally go doivn.] See, for some examples, the note to 
V. 260, 261, of Canto iii., and the note on v. 715, of Canto iv. They 
are all, however, mere Ex uno disce omnes : his paper, like most others 
in America, will furnish daily illustration of the text. 

499. Madam, the meaning of which Latin is,] A verse of Dryden's, 
in the Tale of the JVun^s Priest. 

501. Search you he must — ] "I remarked to them that I presumed, 
from what had been dropped at our former visit, they were fully ap- 
prized of the object of our call, — being, if possible, to test the truth 
or falsehood of Maria Monk's publications in New York. I informed 
them, that I should be satisfied with nothing short of a minute exami- 
nation of any and every part of the institution, etc. etc. And there 
was not an apartment, in either slory, which I did not examine with the 
closest scrutiny, from fioor to ceiling, etc. etc. We visited the cells of 
the nuns and examined their furniture (!!!) etc." Visit, &c. 

If one only reflect for a minute on the above intelligence, the ex- 
quisite impudence of a man's presuming to search a religious bouse 
of females, (or any house whatever,) not under his control, and that 
too in as it were a foreign country, will make him stare. Upon my 
word, I know nothing that can equal in effrontery, as nothing can 
surpass in absurdity, this chivalrous expedition of Rubeta, — except 
it should be himself The women should have crammed the fool into 
one of the " carboys " he speaks of, and made water on him. 

This note I am inclined to liiink is spurious, as the Author would hardly have 
rendered so illustrious for every virtue and endowment of mind a creature he de- 
spised. It was probably written by some person to whom he had lent the poem 
previously to putting it into our possession. Of Rubeta's right to search the con* 
Tent, and examine the nuns' chambers, I think there can be but one opinion. The 
voice of religious duty, of philanthropy, and of honor, urged the hero on, and noth- 
ing called him back, but common sense and common decency. * * 



48 THE VISIOiN OF RUBETA. 

For though my heart persuades me Monk is sound, 
I 'd give the world the wretch were sack'd and 
drown'd ! 



Ver. 503. — my heart persuades me Monx is sound,] " I am con- 
strained in candor to confess," (says Rubeta in his Visit,) " that, al- 
though at times a partial believer, and at others a skeptic as to the 
truth of her fearful revelations of hypocrisy, lust, and blood, I was 
rather a believer than otherwise during the earlier part of my Canadian 
visit." — The meaning of the opposition between although at times a 
partial believer, and / was rather a believer than otherwise, is not very 
obvious ; yet the natural conclusion would be, that Rubeta Avas a 
thorough believer by the time he got to Montreal, only we find, by 
the text, that he explains it himself into a persuasion of his heart, 
doubtless against his reason. And here there have not been wanting 
commentators to assert, that it was the foulness of his own heart which 
induced the otherwise clear-seeing Ruby to believe these fearful reve- 
lations : but they evidently err in malice ; for, though we are indeed 
told that the imagination of man's heart is always evil, [Figmentum 
cogitaiionum cordis hominis tantummodo malum est omni tempore,*) 
what but an innocent, unspotted soul could believe in such monstrous 
guilt without the most direct and undeniable evidence ? Understand it 
therefore, For though the simplicity of my own honest heart would lead 
me to believe that Monk told the truth, etc. 

" Tam ssepe nostrum decipi Fabullum, quid 

Miraris, Aule ? semper bonus homo tiro est." f * * 
504. / 'c? give the world the wretch were sacked and drown'd ! ] 
Spittata Ambizione! Bowelless Ambition! Even the gentle Rubeta 
forgets his nature, and grows tiger-toothed at thy infernal instigation. 

" Comprendi 

Che I'uomo ambizioso e uom crudele. 

Tra le sue mire di grandezza e lui 

Metti il capo del padre e del fratello ; 

Calchera 1' uno e 1' altro, e fara d' ambo 

Sgabello ai piedi per salir sublime." | 

Even so says Aristodemus. And if a king, thus prompted, can make a 
footstool of his father's head, what wonder that Rubeta, greater than a 
king, a sage, should wish to see Maria bagged and sinking. 



# * 



* Gen. vi. 5. t Mart. Ep. xii. 51. % Monti : Aristod. At. \°, So. 4^. 



CANTO FIRST. 49 

For, Mother, — oh ! — I choke for very spite, — 505 

My child is dead, since Mary's saw the light ! 

My lov'd Matthias! he, my last ! my best ! 

So Aaron's serpent swallow'd up the rest. 

Therefore this staff shall rake your Cato's den, 

T' outramp lewd Monk, and saliant make our pen. 5io 

For as the beetle, which in roses dies. 

When wrapp'd in dung is known again to rise, 

Ver. 505-507. For, Mother, — oh !— I choke for verxf spite, — My 
child is dead, etc.] This is telling the truth to put Satan to confusion. 
RuVs ingenuousness in pleading guilty to envy cannot be too much 
admired. 

We know not who wrote the above note, which is traced with a lead 
pencil, but it is certainly made without due reflection. Emulation is not 
envy ; literary rivalry might agitate the breast of an Addison. Ruh 
writes a book on religious imposture : being by a known and distinguish- 
ed hand, it reaches a second edition : up starts Monk's, upon the same 
subject, and, like Aaron's serpent, as Ruby says, swallows the unfortu- 
nate Matthias whole. Has not then the hero a reason to abhor Maria ? 



# * 



508. So Aaron's serpent, etc.] It appears to have escaped the Author 
that this entire verse belongs to Pope : 

And hence one master-passion in the breast. 
lAJce Jason's serpent swallows up the rest. 

Essay on Man, ii. * * 
609. — Cato^s den.] Virgil writes the name Cacus •• but that is of 
no consequence : Rubeta must have his reasons for deviating from 
received authority : and besides, what is Virgil to Rubeta ? * * 

510. — saliant make our pen.] Saliant : a term in heraldry applied to 
animals in a leaping posture. Some impertinent grammarian, comment- 
ing on the passage, has presumed to give the word an equivocal mean- 
ing, notwithstanding the companion-phrase ramp sufficiently indicates 
its sense, and is moreover applied to an animal said to be of the femi- 
nine gender. * * 

511. For as the beetle, which in roses dies, — When, etc.] " Quando 
sepelis scarabseum in rosis, moritur ; et, si sepelis in stercore, vivifica- 
7 



50 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

So, though I mince, the town's dull taste to please, 
And piddle any way like vulgar Reese ; 
Yet Hastiness in petto forms my joy, 5i5 

Gives me new life, and cures where dainties cloy. 



tur." — Albert. Mag. de Mirah. Mun. {in eodcm libello quo de Secretis, 
etc.) Lugd. 1582. 

514. — vulgar Reese;] David Meredith Reese, M. D. — This very 
wise Doctor in Medicine has his fat little finger in every dish. Thus : 
a book is published on Phrenology^ (a doctrine, by the by. Dr. John 
Augustine Smith, which, however inexact its superstructure, is based 
on incontestable truth,) Dr. Reese, without knowing any thing about it, 
rumbles away at it, as though all the thunder of the church were con- 
centred in his single belly to fright the demon of this new heresy. 
Does the Temperance Cause want a strong advocate, out pops Dr. 
Reese, like Minerva, ready-armed. Ecce signum: 

"■ High Price of Provisions. — A public meeting for the consideration and discus- 
sion of the above important subject will be held at the Tabernacle, in Broadway, on 
Friday evening- next, the 20th inst. In Paris bread is 2 cents a pound, in London 3, — 
in America, the greatest grain-growing country in the world, 6. Why is this 1 
Thousands of bushels of grain, etc. Who eats this food ? What has become of it ? 
The distilleries of this city alone annually consume 1,200,000 bushels, and the brew- 
eries destroy many thousand bushels more. For this wanton and sinful perversion of 

the bounties of Providence, is there no help ? etc. The Rev. Dr. , David M. 

Reese, M. D., and the Rev. Thomas P. , are engaged to address the meeting. 

Services will commence at 7 o'clock." Adv. in the N. F. -papers. 

What! does the little Doctor think, because his name is David, he 
was born to make a Psalter ? 

614. And piddle any way like vulgar Reese;"] A book has just appeared, 
[March, 1838,) the title of which will illustrate very clearly this verse in 
the text: to wit, "Humbugs of New York, being a Remonstrance against 
Popular Delusion, whether in Science, Philosophy, or Religion. By 
David Meredith Reese, M. D. New York." Where, as the editor of 
the N. Y. American tells us, " Animal Magnetism, Phrenology, Homceo- 
pathia, Ultra Temperance, Ultra Abolitionism, Ultra Protestantism, and 
Ultra Sectarianism, are in turn discussed with much ability." (By the 
by, it is rare that so good matter finds so good a judge.) * * 

615, 516. Yet nastiness in petto forms my joy, — Gives me neio life, and 
cures ivhere dainties cloy.] See, for one example, the N. Y. Comm. 
Adv. of May 20th, 1835, where some hypocritical old woman's pedantic 
and puritanically indecent gossip, of the outrageous conduct of the vaga- 



CANTO FIRST. 51 

Nay ! weep not ladies, nor your entrails vex : 
Our cause is one ; Rubeta loves your sex : 
And as to save you serves my ov^n great end, 
Reach me your hands ; I stand your convent's 
friend. ^'^^ 

bond boys, who, evei-y evening, perpetrate unmolested the vilest outrages 
upon the persons of young and defenceless females, in the streets of 
Nantucket, is industriously copied from the "Inquirer" of that place, 
and ushered in with appropriate flourishes in equally pure English, 
headed, in editorial capitals, Trouble in Nantucket ; of which, take 
this specimen : 

"We should as soon have expected, from all previous information, to hear of a 
sedate elephant playi7ig off the tricks and capers of a restless monkey, as of any 
thing in the shape of wickedness perpetrated among the sober Jethros and Pelegs 
of Nantucket, even though it were by the youngest proprietors of those euphomous 
appellatives ; etc. What is our friend the Editor about that he tolerates such enor- 
mities 1 etc." 

It is probable, that the mighty trouble was nothing but the usual 
ribaldry of schoolboys, who, despite the poets, are everywhere wanton; 
but, whether exaggeration, or simple fact, a man must love the prurience 
of concupiscence when he takes the trouble, gratuitously, to put before 
us dirty anecdotes, and chuckles facetiously over them by way of com- 
mentary : 

« Because he seems to chew the cud again. 
When his broad comment makes the text too plain ; 
And teaches more in one explaining page 
Than all the double-meanings of the stage." * 
However, see note to v. 714 of Canto iv., for an account of other 
specimens of purity, still more edifying to the young idea than this, and 
equally worthy of the nice gentleman who '^ devoted," to use his own 
language, part of a morning, « to the study of the latest edition" of 
Monk's beastly narrative. 

519. — to save you serves my own great end,] So. by enabling him 
to incur the expense of sundry additional pairs of breeches for its com- 
fort and protection. — Vet. Schol. 
We see no need of giving this simple phrase such substantiality of 

* Dryden's Cymon and Jphigenia. * * 



5^ THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Give me but ground to sw^ear Maria lies, 
I '11 squirt your spital even to the skies. 

As when two friends meet sudden, far from 
home, 
In Haroun's walks, or Peter's church at Rome : 
They start, embrace, repeat each other's name ; 525 
Eyes, lips, and hands, one mutual joy proclaim : 
Or as when swan-legg'd Phyllis, in her path. 
Spies, Hale, thy darling bristling up in wrath ; 



meaning-. Understand by his " great end," money, or notoriety, or money 
and notoriety. In v. 468, 469, he has said : 

" My gods are glory, money, and the pen. 
Those drove me here, to feed my purse and pride." * * 

521, 622. Give me hut ground to swear Maria lies, — 1 HI squirt your 
spital even to the skies.'] So, or something like this, said Archimedes 
of his lever and the world. It is wonderful how often great men think 
and speak alike I * * 

lb.] Accordingly, at the tail of his prose Visit Rubeta enters this 
solemn declaration ; which we print in the same style as there found : 

" I will therefore now close this protracted narrative, by expressing my deliberate 
and solemn opinion, founded not only upon my own careful examination, but upon the 
firmest convictions of nearly the entire population of Montreal, — embracing the body 
of the most intelligent evangelical Christians, that Maria Monk is an arrant 

IMPOSTOR, AND HER BOOK, IN ALL ITS ESSENTIAL FEATURES, A TISSUE OF 
CALUMNIES." Etc. "RUBETA." 

"Postscript. ***** How melancholy to see grave theologians and intelligent 
laymen, thus pinning themselves to the aprons of such women ! But enough. 

"Rub." ** 

524. In Haboun's walks — ] That is, in Bagdad. The readers of the 
Arabian JVights will not have forgotten the Caliph Haroun. * * 

528. — Hale, thy darling — ] Gerard Hale, editor of the N. Y. 
Journal of Commerce. The canicidal propensities of this modern re- 
viver of the Cynophontis are well known. 

The baptismal name of the dog-queller is David^ and not Gerard; which belongs 
to his partner. * * 



CANTO FIRST. 53 

Then sees, as on with fluttering heart she goes, 
Carlo down tail and only smell her clothes : 530 

Or like who treads some plashy road by night, 
And takes for mire veiFd Cynthia's partial light. 
But setting down one timid foot to try. 
Feels the spot hard, delighted finds it dry : 
So show'd the abbess joy, surprise, to see 535 

Friend, quiet cur, sure ground, all met in me. 
Then clear and loud was heard that lady's throat. 
And from her rivell'd lips these accents float : 

O dear delight ! O joy which saints might share ! 
I see my ass ! my dream is DanielPd there ! 540 

O that it might with hood and wimple suit 
To give that pleasant mouth one chaste salute ! 
But Father Richard's bill must serve instead. 
Now hear what vision bless'd my virgin bed. 

Bolt upright on our spital's highest wall 545 

Methought the apostate sat ; so hugely tall, 
Her shadow gloom'd thy towers, dun Montreal ! 
In man's attire indecent, straddled wide. 
Her long limbs spurn the ground. On th' outer side. 
Drawn by a team of monstrous geese, a cart, 550 
Fresh from the sinks, now play'd no vulgar part. 
Books were its load ; and in their midst a pole 
Bore high a petticoat and friar's cowl, 
Stitch'd crosswise ; where this legend met the eyes : 
MojfK^s Stool of Prayer, or Spiritual Spanish Flies. 555 



54 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

A man half priest, in surplice wrong side out, 
Sat in the front to rein the feather'd rout. 
From time to time he thunder'd out these words : 
Damn morals ! Jlout old Babylon^ my birds ! 
Whereat, with clanging wing, these spread the bill, 56o 
And hiss, harsh-straining, silly discord shrill. 
Meantime this demi-priest, his right arm free, 
Takes singly up the books with seeming glee. 
And reach'd them, redolent of filth, to Monk : 
Then much they seem'd to joy that honest punk: 565 
Ah, DwiGHT ! she sigh'd, and pitch'd them, echoing 

Dwight^ 
Down in the yard : where lo ! a novel sight. 
A swcirm of foetuses, of such strange looks 
As figure on the leaves of doctors' books ; 
(I 'm told they keep 'em bottled too, on shelves ! 570 
I wonder if they pickle 'em themselves ?) 

Ver. 559. " Damn morals .'Jlout old Babylon, my birds ! "] Whatever the 
mischiefs of the Catholic faith, (and the compiler of Monk's Disclosures 
cannot know them as well as the writer of this note,) they never can 
sanction the burning of convents,* and the aspersing of the reputation 
of innocent women by indecent pictures, which are read universally 
only for the solitary titillation of a lustful fancy. It must be truly 
gratifying to the moral feelings of Mr. D wight, to have made thousands 
of women whores by stigmatizing some score or two as such. 

* As lately, by certain of the rabble, in this very State, 

Ausi quod liceat tunica punire molestaja- 
that is, for which they deserved the san-benito ; yet an atrocity which reallj' seemed 
to give high satisfaction to certain persons, such as Rubeta calls gentlemen of true 
Christian piety, kut ' e^o^fiv, and professors of the Protestant faith. 

a Juv. Sat. viii. 235. ** 



CANTO FIRST. 55 

We deem they do ; are not quite sure, I said. 

(Jesu Maria ! what a shocking trade !) 
Of these, instinct with infant life, a swarm 
CrawPd from the earth, of every size and form. 575 
Thick as the fluttering, tottering, tailless brood. 
By cottage huswife cluck'd to matin food. 
When, standing at the door with heap'd-up pan. 
She strows impartial round the moisten'd bran. 
Or as you see the black ants busy run 580 

Tow'rd some dead insect drying in the sun 
On your stone window-sill : from crack and seam. 
Beside, beneath, the restless creatures stream : 
Gather'd in knots these seem to hold debate ; 
Those scour the plain, the envoys of the state ; 585 
Ant jostles ant ; till one more apt to toil 
'Mid the vain bustle carries off the spoil. 
So dense, confus'd, encountering without sound. 
Swarm the rude fry and glisten o'er the ground. 

Fast as imprison'd turkeys gorge their food, 590 
The blind, long-navelPd, fungus-headed brood 



Ver. 572. IVe deem they do ; are not quite sure — ] In matters of impor- 
tance, as we have seen, (note to v. 378,) Rubeta always qualifies his 
opinion with some such negative phrase : a tautological modesty em- 
inently graceful in a man of his universal knowledge, who might well 
be allowed not to doubt any thing. * * 

691. The blind, long-naveWd, fungus-headed brood] Blind, because 
the eyes o^ foetus are always represented as closed. The succeeding 
epithets appear to refer to the appendage of the umbilical cord, and 
the monstrous size of the head, which in these subjects bears some such 



56 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Lift in their tiny hands, nor seem to strain, 
The printed excrement of Monk's gross brain, 
And pile it 'gainst our wall. Then flash'd the pjre 
With sudden blaze ; the eddying flames aspire ; 595 
Tome catches after tome and feeds the rav'ning fire. 

As when in populous cities, in the streets, 
Some old straw-bed with funeral honors meets, 
The sudden flame gilds ev'ry dwelling nigh. 
And the thick smoke rolls crimson to the sky : 600 
A youthful rabble gather round with cries. 
Stir the red mass, and watch the sparks arise. 
To distant passer-by no irksome sight 
The scene's bold shadows and its shifting light ; 
But he who fronts it where the night-wind blows, 605 
Curses old straw, and, coughing, stops his nose. 

proportion to the neck and body as a mushroom to its stem. But the 
curious in such matters may consult the superb work of Dr. Hunter : 
Anat. Uteri Hum. Grav. tahulis illust. * * 

693. — Monk's gross hrain,] Should be Dwight's -pure hrain^ if Rubeta 
and report say rightly ; for it would seem, that Maria merely furnished 
the matter, while this theological gentleman digested it. * * 

600. — crimson — ] The last sad office to mattresses defunct is 
usually performed by night, with a view to the greater pomp and solem- 
nity of the ceremony. 

601 - 606. Jl youthful rabble, etc. — But he who fronts it ivhere the night- 
wind blows — Curses old straw, and, coughing, stops his nose.'] The good 
lady would seem to have been in Manhattan at some period of her 
more worldly life ; for though Montreal may at times witness such 
funeral-piles, like other cities, yet it is the glory of New York to 
abound in them, from the latter end of April to the middle of May, (or 
in moving-time as it is locally and appropriately called,) to the manifest 
delight of horses and of persons with tender eyes. 

At these holocausts of old straw, all the little blackguards in the 



CANTO FIRST. 57 

Pretty ! (methought,) as far as the mere sight 

goes; 
But, Heav'ri ! the rogues '11 roast us in our night- 
clothes ! 
Judge then my fright when, sudden from the 
ground. 
Two forms, in surcingle and cassock bound, 6io 

One like a dumpling, delicately round. 
Shot into life, and squatting by the pyre, 
Fann'd with foul breath the smoke-encircled fire ! 
But chief the dumpling-belly'd parson blew ; 
Such blasts, the flame a mimic Etna grew. 6i5 

Monk clapp'd her haunches guiltless of a gown. 
And faster pour'd the hail of volumes down. 

Then did it seem God's hallow'd roof must fall, 
And one red ruin whelm saints, salves, and all ; 
When a harsh sound, that woke more mirth than 

fear, 620 

Like ungreas'd grindstone grated on my ear, 
And lo ! a creature of a hue stone-gray, 
Of mouth sedate and eyes of temper'd ray, 
Came trotting up, with neck extended proud, 
Prick'd his long ears and stood amid the crowd, 625 



street assemble shouting, and leap through the smoke, like the Roman 
boors at the Palilia. (And it is an amusing coincidence by the by, that 
the festival of the goddess of shepherds was celebrated about the same 
time.) * * 

8 



58 THE VISION OF RUBETA, 

Spread wide his beauteous jaws, and braying twice, 
Th' unclouted bantlings vanish'd in a trice. 
Not so Geneva: puffing like a toad, 
Fearless the swollen navel matchless stood, 
Gather'd fresh fuel and fed the surging flood. 630 

His silken brother skulk'd within his shade, 
And boldly clapp'd him when the jackass bray'd. 
So coward schoolboys second with delight 
Their bolder mates, and prompt the closing fight. 
Then rag'd the war : here swell Sir Dumpling's 

cheeks ; 635 

There the brute's windpipe whistles, sobs, and 

creaks ; 



Ver. 635 - 638. The7i rag'd the war : here swell Sir Bumpling's cheeks ; — 
There the brute's windpipe, etc. — M evei-y blast the girdled belly blew, — 
Longer, etc.] The Author has here taken his privilege as poet to make 
the abbess foreshow the newspaper-contest which afterward arose 
between Bruno and Rubeta. Anon. 

The above remark is one of the examples of a misapplication of inge- 
nuity so often furnished by commentators. Though by special provi- 
dence the abbess might well have dreamed of the coming event, yet 
such a particular dispensation would surely have been noticed by the 
exact Rubeta; for, be it observed, it is not the Poet who speaks, as the 
above interpreter would have it, but Rubeta, who here recounts pre- 
cisely what he had heard, and it is hardly to be imagined that the Poet 
•would interfere with a person of Rubeta's accuracy. The dream is 
simply a dream. * * 

We cannot refrain from slily expressing our dissent at the tail of this 
decision. The whole dream is so perfectly descriptive of events which 
have since taken place ; the fire of Bruno, and the passive courage of 
his bottle-holder Molcus, are so little to be mistaken ; that no doubt can 
remain of the correctness of the anonymous commentator. The Reader 
will decide. ^ compositor. 



CANTO FIRST 59 

At ev'ry blast the girdled belly blew, 
Longer his ears, his bray diviner grew. 

But to the outward wall the round priest laid 
A stair of Leavitt's publications made, 640 

Clumb up the height, and leaping over twitches 
His bottle-holder with him by the breeches. 
Monk saw, and toppling headlong in despair. 
Burst into two, and vanish'd, God knows where ! 

Still blaz'd the pyre ; but now, our valiant ass, 645 
Meek satisfaction mantling o'er his face, 
Gaz'd round the field, gave one prodigious bray. 
And listen'd till its echoes dy'd away. 
Then, in a mode ill fits a maid to name, 
Turn'd briskly to the wall, and quench'd the flame. 650 

Ver. 640. A stair of Leavitts publications made,'] In New York Messrs. 
Leavitt, Lord, & Co. are the chief publishers of theological works 
for the Presbyterian church, as Messrs. Swords & Co. for the Epis- 
copal. * * 

643, 644. MoNs: saw, and toppling headlong in despair, — Burst into 
two, and vanished, God knows where !] When the braying of the Com- 
mercial at last overpowered the pulmonary vigor of Bru.no, and the 
backclapping of Molcus, the house of Monk, formed by the two Canada 
pigeons, as celebrated in the earlier part of the Canto, split into its 
component parts, and exit. The last that was heard of the fair Maria 
was, if we mistake not, of her arrest by her bookseller on a plea of 
debt, just as she was going off (according to the newspapers) with some 
reverend gentleman, — we believe with Bruno's identical bottle-holder. 

Anon. 

Conclusion of the Canto.] Perhaps it may not be superfluous to re- 
mark, for some readers, that this dream of the abbess has nothing to do 
with the title of the poem. The Vision of Mubeta is a very different 
thing altogether, and its "prodigies august" are not recounted, it will 
be seen, till the final Canto. See the first note in this volume, on the 
proposition of the poem. * * 



CANTO SECOND. 



THE NUNNERY 



ARGUMENT. 

The hero continues his narration. — The refection. Savory 
and sage conversation which Rubeta held with the nuns there- 
at. The augury. The abbess is seized with a fit of prophetic 
inspiration. She promises canonization to the hero. Grand 
march of the exploring army of the Veils. Address of its 
commander. Examination of the dormitory. The troops are 
reinforced by the novices, and with this accession of strength 
descend to the vaults. Awful trial of the magic wand. Re- 
treat and reascent. The room of the spinners. The hero 
scales the wall. Disastrous consequences of this perilous 
exploit, and the precipitous flight of the sisterhood. The 
heroic chief in his lonely and distressing situation and con- 
dition finds solace in the bosom of philosophy. His prayer to 
Venus. Its success. He is only lifted out of one predica- 
ment to fall into another still more painful. His shrieks bring 
back the sisterhood. The awkwardness of Fretille. Un- 
abated fire of the hero. His speech to his forces : their re- 
ply. The adventure of the jars. The exhausted sisters would 
return : but their great commander rouses up their courage, 
and leads them to the craven. Arrival at the iron door, and 
encounter with the Cyclops. The hero, in danger of annihila- 
tion, is rescued by the interposition of Boiteuse. The Cy- 
clops opens the iron door, and bares the passage to the cave of 
enchantment. * * 



THE 



VISION OF RUBETA 



CANTO SECOND. 

The Abbess ceased. Fir'd by the scene she drew, 
To arms ! I crj'd ; the work is yet to do : 
Delay breeds languor ; courage ! onward set ! 

Stay, said the Mother ; first your whistle wet. 
Valor has entrails, and the mettled soul, 5 

Like duller spirit, lives by bread and bowl. 
And hark ! where happily chiming with our need 
Sonnette's clear signal summons us to feed ; 
Roll me, my maidens, forward in my seat : 
We quit our ease to see Rubeta eat. lo 

Ver. 5, 6. Valor Jias entrails, and the mettled soul, — Like, etc.] So 
the Ithacan tells the fiery son of Peleus : 

To ya,^ f^ivo; itfr) xai kXtcri- 

Oh yl^g, K. r. X. 11' Xix. 161. 

KiLLEY, says he, no man is worth a tittle, 
Unless his belly 's bolster'd well with victual ; 
But when the paunch is lin'd, with scant ado 
He '11 rout whole hosts, and cut their chiefs in two. 
A remarkable coincidence : for when Ulysses talks thus sagely to 
the grandson of ^acus, this chief is hot for action, and about to 
drive his rascals straightway against the troops of Hector, just as the 
prince here, furious for the fight, cries Courage ! to his comrades, and 
wants to march at once to the field of destined glory. * * 



64 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Nay sir ! your greatness must not stoop, — yet 

thanks ! 
BoiTEusE, lead on ; Noir, Grisoeil, guard his 

flanks. 
Now when we came, a graceful gliding group, 
Where the starv'd sisters swallow meagre soup, 
Two nymphs brown towels of British fabric bring, 15 
Two more shed water of the sacred spring. 
Then spread the board, add sugarplums for me. 
With the goat's milky store, and crown the bowls 

with tea. 
And Take, the Mother said ; we drink to thee, 
Darling of dames ! sweet ass that is to be ! 20 

And we to you, by obloquy obscene. 
Nymphs six-and-thirty, black in bombazine. 
Gray sisters thirty-four, though gone your veils, 
Ye too we pledge, divine in turn'd-up tails ! 



Ver. 13, etc. JVow when we came, etc.] 

Postquam est in thalami pendentia pumice tecta 
Perventum, 



manibus liquidos, &c. &c. 

Georg.iv. 374-386. 
20. — sweet ass that is to he ! ] Not prophetic, as Mad. Dacier would 
have it, but simply in allusion to the fulfilment of the Mother's vision. 

# # 
23, 24. Gray sisters thirty-four, though gone your veils, — Ye too we 
pledge, divine in turn'd-up tails ! ] We may gather Rubeta's meaning 
from this passage in his prose Visit, where he speaks of the black nuns : 
" To the black veil is attached, etc. etc. The skirts are turned up like 
those of the gray nuns. The tout ensemble is dignified, becoming, and 
rather graceful." As he does not say this of the gray nuns' tout, we 



CANTO SECOND. 66 

Then, thrice three times, I filPd the china high, 25 
Thrice three times rais'd it level with my eye. 
One hand then on my glowing paunch I laid. 
Undid a waistband-button, cough'd, and said: 

Ladies, I might look round me with surprise. 
Had I, like Bruno, better ears than eyes ; so 

For, saving Hydropique, where shall we see 
One of your choir in womb a match for me ? 
Yet Roman Lucrece solemnly declares 
Your house prolific as the race of hares! 

may presume this latter did not please him so much. Yet did they wear 
their skirts turned up; which was a redeeming trait. Therefore, these 
absent friends — T/^oi/gA ^oiie their veils, Them too he yUdg'd—for 
why ? divine their tails. * * 

34. Your house prolific as the race of hares I] Lest it be supposed 
that the Poet's peculiar chastity has feigned the style of the discourse 
which here commences, we append the following extract from Rubeta's 
Visit, as published in his newspaper for the edification and amusement 
of youths and misses, whose parents debar ihem from more private 
sources of wholesome instruction: 

''Now as 1 have already said, there are but thirty-six nuns: more than one half 
are ' past age ' Certainly not more than fifteen of them could ' in the natural course 
of human events ' become mothers. Taking [Take] Maria's statements, therefore, as 
correct data, and each of those fifteen nuns -striking the average -must give buth 
to two and a half children every year ! ! " 

It will be seen from this elaborate calculation, and nice specimen of 
Obstetrico-physiological knowledge, that the Author in the text has mere- 
ly acted the part of an humble historian. 

JV. B. Desirous, at once to benefit society, and to do a service to 
modest professional merit unworthily confined to small practice, we add 
of our own instigation, that if any lady, " in the natural course of human 
events," should stand in need of a skilful and delicate person, we here, 
on the score of his great theoretical attainments above shown, most 
strongly recommend Rubeta as a safe hand. Any communications 
for the doctor will be gladly received, and shall be published in our next 
edition of the poem. * * 
9 



66 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

As throng the ragged idlers of the street 35 

Round barrel-organ dolorously sweet, 
And barefac'd little ape much lov'd of boys, 
So the nymphs gather round to hear my noise : 
And PuTAiN said, while sought her eyes the ground, 
O father ! speak ! is any here too round ? 40 

Daughter, I said, that needs not. To be bold, 
(With pardon hear it,) you are all too old ; 
Save here and there a pullet like Fretille. 
Yet novices nor pullets hatch at will. 
Have we not read Albertus, and Pin^us ; 45 

Harvey, Soranus, Noortwyk, and CosxiEus ; 



Ver. 39. — while sought her eyes the ground,] Not to be attributed to 

a sense of guilt, as Turnebus supposes, but to her extreme modesty. 

* # 

45-52. Have we not read, etc.] How Rubeta contrived to string 
together these names, and whether they occurred to him on the occa- 
sion, or had been duly prepared for the sake of effect on the women, is 
past our simple comprehension. However, we incline to the latter sup- 
position, as being more consonant with the character of the man ; for 
we find him, at the Bookseller's Dinner, reading extracts from some 
translation of Cicero, after giving out, that he had come there without 
any preparation other than the collection of some statistical matter, 
though he was heard, but a short time before, quoting the identical 
passages in one of his lectures at Clinton-Hall ! and the poor devil is as 
ignorant of Latin, and of any thing else beyond the forms of his 
printing-office, as my double-soled winter-boots with cork welts. 

We cannot believe that our Poet is the author of the above foolish and malicious 
note, notwithstanding that it comes to us most legibly in ink. Even could there 
be any doubts of the vast erudition of Rubeta, this were not the place to advance 
them : for what more amiable, than when his sole wish was to console the abbess 
and her flock under the afflictions which Monk's effrontery had heaped upon them, 
what, I say, more amiable, than to show he understood their case perfectly, and 
knew, without examination, that they were innocent, simply from his extensive 
reading in the matters of which Moxk had treated ? And then we find that it is not 



CANTO SECOND. 67 



BoNETus, Needham, Fuchsius, Fernelius, 
Malpighi, Aristotle, Graaf, Aurelius ; 



a mere parade of learned research, but an actual list of real authors who treat of 
the subject in hand, or of persons some way connected with it, which he gives us j 
and would this have been necessary had his object been merely to dazzle ? an 
object as easily obtained by naming Nicodehus as Roonhusius, Aldiboron- 
TOPHOSCOPHORNio as Merian and Mauriceau. — We have been led into this 
long discussion from our desire to justify this great and good man. We now pro- 
ceed to show to whom and what this string of names belongs. 

Albertus is the well-known Albertus, surnamed Magnus, who wrote a small 
book De Secretis Mulierum ; and he properly heads the list as being wittily styled 
by Butler ^'secretary'' to the ladies. PiNiEus, a French surgeon, was author of 
the famous treatise De Notis Integritatis et Corrup. Virginum. The third name is 
that of the celebrated author of the doctrine of the circulation of the blood 5 he 
wrote Exer. de Generatione Anim. ; quibus ace. qucedam de Partu, de Memb. ac 
Humor. Uteri, et de Conceptione. Soranus, an Ephesian physician who practised 
at Rome in the reigns of Trajan and Adrian, claims a place for his treatise in 
Greek, De Utero et Pudend. Mid. Noortwyk wrote UteH Hum. Grav. Anat. et 
Hist. CosTiEUS, De Hum. Concept. &c. &c. Bonetus ; see his Sepulchretum. 
Of Needham there is some doubt, whether it be the Mother Needham commem- 
orized by Pope, or Walter Needham : the former claiming the place from practi- 
cal connexion with the subject, the latter from his Disquisiiio Anat. de Form. Foet. 
Fuchsius ; Hist. Stirp. Fernelius is the great French physician of that name, 
whose Universa Medicina is well known. It may not be out of place to add that 
he is said to have died of grief /or the loss of his wife. Malpighi ; Opera Omn. 
Aristotle ; either the Greek, or, more probably, one of the joint compilers, 
among whom a certain Salmon is conspicuous, of a popular treatise, usually con- 
sidered a Masterpiece. Graaf 3 Regnier de Graaf wrote De Virorum Organ. 
&c. Aurelius ; probably Aurelius Corn. Celsus ; De Medecina. Columbus 
(Realdus) ; De Re Anatom.. Cleopatra 5 one of the authors in the Harmonia Gy- 
nceciorum. Her writings are mentioned by Galen. Some suppose her to have 
been the same Egyptian who swallowed pearl-mixture, lost Antony the world, and 
took poison of asps. Verulamius 5 the Latin title of the famous Bacon. Ruys- 
cHius {Fred.), like Malpighi, Needham, De Graaf, &;c. studied the nature of 
generation in animals : Opera Omn. Roonhusius ; de Morb. Mul. Swammer- 
DAMMius 5 Biblia Natures ; et Mirac. Nat. Culpepper * {Nich.) " gent, student in 
physic and astronomy," a famous fellow in his day, wrote a Directory for Midwives. 
Merian {Mat-ia) : this lady, like Swammerdam, attended to these matters in 
insects. She went to Surinam on purpose to watch the little creatures, and wrote 
Dissert, de Generatione et de Metarnorph. Insect. Surinamensium. Astruc j the 
well-known author De Morbis Venereis ; he also published seven volumes Des Mala- 
dies des Femmes. Mauriceau 5 the best writer on midwifery of his day (1694) j 
Sur la Grossesse, et sur VAccouch. des Femmes. Smellie, a well-known authority 

* In other edd. Horstius ; the " ^sculapius of Germany," famed for the " Dissert, de 
Nat. Amoris, add. Resolut. de Cura Furoris Amat., de Philtris, atque de Pulsu Araantium." 
Others again read Ferrand, who wrote a book of considerable learning, and rather curi- 
ous, De la Maladie cf Amour. Either reading is good. * * 



68 the vision of rubeta. 

Columbus, Cleopatra, Verulammius ; 
ruyschius, roonhusius, swammerdammius ; 50 
Culpepper, Merian, Astruc, Mauriceau ? 
And dream'd on Smellie ? Sure, we ought to 

know. 
Out on Credulity ! 't would swallow whole 
A rabbit-bellj'd elephant with foal ! 
Go on, chaste Monk ; cut never babe in twain ; 55 
But propagate the darlings in thy brain ! 
So shalt thou blossom when Munchausen fades, 
And Brunos shake their curls, to read how maids 
May be like Marg'ret, Holland's Countess, bless'd 
With near two hundred infants at each breast ! co 

in obstetrical matters. The more ordinary reading for that in the text is " And 
Smellie folio ? '"' (another name for the folio ed. of the " Anatom. Tables ") : 
which leads us to suppose it was the plates on which Rubeta dreamed, and not 
the text of his author- * * 

Ver. 55. — cut never babe in twain ; ] Alludes to the division of the 
ciiildren after the manner of Solomon in Rubeta's famous calculation 
of generative power, cited in note to v. 35. * * 

56. But propagate, etc ] Allusion to the same. ** 

63. And Brunos shake their curls — ] Bruno's picture represents 
him with a wig like that of Arethusa on an ancient Syracusan coin. 
Rubeta thus seizes his enemy by the hair of his head, while investing 
him with one of the attributes of Jupiter. * * 

59^ 60. — like Masq'set, Hollanv's Countess, blessed — With near two 
hundred infants at each breast ! ] " But I esteem it," says Mauriceau 
with much simplicity, " either a miracle, or a fable, what is related in the 
history of the Lady Margaret, Countess of Holland, who in the year 
1313 was brought to bed of three hundred and sixty-five children at one 
and the same time ; which happened to her (as they say) by a poor 
woman's imprecation, who, asking an alms, related to her the great 
misery she was in by reason of those children she had with her : to 
which the Lady answered, she might be content with the inconvenience, 



CANTO SECOND. 69 

Ah, like St. Cyr's proud abbess of Marseilles, 
And all her virgins, grac'd with just your tails, 
Ah, ladies, had you cut your noses off. 
No Monk might libel, and no parson scoff! 

Cut off! . . . That would be paying for one's 
whistle ! ^^ 

The cancer first shall rot them, bone and gristle ! 

There spoke the saint ! Nor think a heart like 
mine 
Could dream of maiming organs so divine : 
For what says Socrates, that learned Roman ? 
The loveliest nose is nose of lovely woman : 70 



since she had had the pleasure of getting them." Chamberlen's 

Translation, Sth ed. Lond. p. 40. 

Not the least amusing part of the story, and which Mauriceau does 

not mention, is that they were all baptized! * * 

61 - 63. Ah, like St. Cyr's proud abbess, etc.] It is told of Eusebia, 

abbess of St.Cyr at Marseilles in the eighth century, that, in dread of 

violence from the Saracens, she cut off her nose, and was duly followed 

(says the story) by all her nuns, whereupon the enraged barbarians put 

them to death. * * 

69-7-2. For what says Socrates, that learned iJojir^iv.^ — The loveliest 
nose, etc.] The Author here in a note, which it is unnecessary to insert, 
appears to exult in the supposed ignorance of Rubeta ; for, says he, 
though the pretended citation may be well supposed a pleasant imposi- 
tion practised upon the simplicity of the recluses, yet why should he 
speak of Socrates as a Rowan ? Now to us it seems, that, if one part 
of the passage be a joke of Rubeta's, so is the other. But the Author 
forgets that this historical personage, however fond of humor on other 
occasions, is always too gallant to trifle with women. We explain the 
passage thus : Rubeta styles Socrates a Roman, because of his vir- 
tues, which certainly were not exactly Grecian, and learned because of 
his profundity in metaphysics, — perhaps for his ingenuity in solving 
difficult questions in science, as shown by Aristophanes. The loveliest 



70 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

And : Maim what else you please, backbite, or scandal, 
But O ! for GoD^s sake, leave her face a handle! 
No, Heav'n forbid ! the fair, I know from books, 
Would lose fame, virtue, all, before good looks. 
(Pardon this praise : Rubeta's only vice, 75 

Save Ijing, is to have an eye too nice.) 

But, to return : suppose that all were young ; 
The snake has hiss'd, but is the bird yet stung ? 
To teem such numbers, needs each friar and nun 
Should be like parent Adam, two in one ; so 



nose is evidently a translation of ro xaXovt at once the object of research 
with the ancient philosophers, and the subject of their discourses ; for 
which novel interpretation we maintain that Rubeta has undoubtedly 
ample authority, authority that probably ere long will be presented to 
the learned world: (see the note to v. 118, on the MSS. of Vallombrosa.) 
And on the same conjectural grounds we maintain the integrity of the 
quotation as an actual part of the doctrine of the divine Socrates. 
Certainly no exacter truth could be pronounced than is done in these 
few words, none more worthy of a sage : 

" The loveliest nose is nose of lovely woman: 
And : Maim ivhat else you please^ backbite, or scandal. 
But O ! for Gods sake, leave her face a handle ! " 
Some copies read Seneca for Socrates. * * 

75, 76. Pardon this praise : Ruireta's only vice, — Save lying, is to have 
an eye too nice.] The gallantry and grace with which Rubeta rubs 
down the feelings of the nuns, a little chafed by what he had said about 
their noses, find no parallel among the ancient epic heroes. The in- 
genuity of his compliment savours of the spirit of Louis XIV. ** 

79. To teem such numbers, etc.] The first argument of consolation 
here commences : Even though you were all young enough, Monk's 
libel is innocuous (v. 78) ; because you could not breed so fast unless 
you were provided like certain reptiles. "^ * 

80. — like parent uiviM, two in one ; ] According to the Talmudists, 
the common father of mankind was created double ; before a male, 
behind a female. See, for this cabalistical perversion of a verse in 



CANTO SECOND. 71 

Like Alcibiades and Aristides, 
Themistocles, th' Androgyni, Pelides, 

Genesis, Moses Maimonides, in his book on the perplexing and per- 
plexed passages of Scripture.* But to moderate the reader's mirth we 
may tell him that the opinion, however absurd, that man originally 
united both sexes in one person, has found wise men to maintain it ; for 
example, no less a name, we think, than Plato, f 

81-84. Like Alcibiabes and Aristides, etc.] " Rivales socii puellula- 
rum." J What Suetonius says of C^sar need not be repeated; and 
Clodius is similarly distinguished by his friend Cicero ; but how the 
son of Peleus comes to be lugged in among this honorable company is 
more than I can well explain. Servius, commenting on those lines of 
Virgil which describe the death of Troilus by the spear of Achilles, 
gives what he calls the true account, that " Troili amore Achillem duc- 
tum, palumbes ei quibus ille delectabatur objecisse ; quas cum vellet 
tenere, captus ab Achille, in ejus complexibus periit:" but how this 

* The More Nevochim. As I do not possess a copy of this work, I cannot refer 
the Reader to the precise passage in the Eagle of the Doctors : it can be found, how- 
ever, by the curious, without difficulty, 

+ The author of the Nicene creed, on the contrary, seems to have beHeved, that, 
before the fall, Adam, so far from being of both sexes, was of neither one nor the 
other: arguing somehow after this fashion : When it was asked which of the brothers 
that had married successively the same woman should possess her in the world to 
come, Christ answered the Sadducees, that in Heaven there was neither marrying 
nor giving in marriage, but that there we should be like the angels, the sons of God. 
Now, says the Bishop, the state of the resurrection is but a restoration to the primi- 
tive integrity of Paradise. Therefore, the primitive condition of man in Paradise 
was that of the angels. But the angels do not propagate their kind : they have con- 
sequently no distinction of sexes such as is known to us. Therefore Adam was sex- 
less. Vide Gregorium Nyss. Antist. de Hominis Opificio. Basil. 1567. Cap. 16, 17. 
prcecipue ad pp. 180, 182, 184.. — The bishop of Nyssa had no difficulty in replenish- 
ing the earth under these circumstances ; for the number of the angels is irfnite with- 
out marriage : 'AXAd //^i/, /ca0wj c'ifjrjTai, yofiov nap' aiiroTj ovk oVtoj, iv ixvpiaaiv aneipots 
at arrpariai tu)v ayytXtov tlaiv • ovTOi yap iv rals onraaiaii b AavifiX Sirjyt'iaaTo. Ovkovv 
Kara tov avTov rpo-KOV, iLirep ixTj^efxia irapaTpoTrr) re Kal EKjTaais and rrji ayyeXiKrji hjxoTi- 
fjita; f| anapriai riyTiv iyivtro, ovk uv ov6( rjiitii tov yaiiov irpbi tov nXrjdvcfxbv iSeijdrjfxev. 
(p. 182.) Which certainly is very pretty reasoning. And the quo modo, the tov 
irXeovacnov rpdffoj, is as nicely evaded by our philosophic theologian and 
moralist : 'aXA' ooth iguv h rjf (pvcrtt tuv ayyiXojv tov nXeovacriJiov Tpoiros, appriTOi (ih 
Kai avenivdriTOi UTo^aaixo^s avdpuynivoi;, nXfjv aWd TOirwf iauv, oiiroj Uv /cat im rSiv 
Ppa^i) Ti Trap' ayysXovs AarTcujuei/wv avQpihirwv (vtjpyrjcrev, eliTO o)piCjxivov virb Trjg (jovXrjs 
70V TTe-oirjKOTOi fiETpov TO avQpuiTsivov av^biv. {lb.) For a curious conversation between 
Raphael and Adam on the loves of the angels, see Paradise Lost, viii. 615. * * 

X Catulli Carm. liv. * * 



72 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Sappho and C^sar, house-snails, worms, hyaenas, 

Laufella, Clodius, and their congeners ; 

Or, like the aphis, hy one impregnation, 85 

Make mothers of their fourteenth generation. 

Moreover, mares will gender with the gale ; 

And maids, whose snowy joints have grac'd the pail 



should qualify the cruel captor to share the cage of the hysenas, except 
on justifiable suspicion, is not very evident. The same remarks apply 
to Themistocles and Aristides, the cause of whose enmity, as as- 
signed by Aristo.x, is well known (see Plutarch in the lives of those 
commanders ) ; likewise to the son of Critias. We can readily be- 
lieve, however, that the learned lluBETA,here as elsewhere, has sources 
of information peculiar to himself, and have only to add an expression 
of regret that our own inferior scholarship will not enable us to gratify 
the Reader by a peep at iiis hidden treasures. * * 

82. — ih' ANnnoc.YNi, — ] "Supra Nasamonas confinesque illis Mach- 
lyas, Androgynos esse utriusque naturae, inter se vicibus co^untes, 
Calliphanes tradit. Aristoteles adjicit dextram mammam iis virilem, 
Isevam muliebrem esse." Pli.n. Hist. JVat. vii. '2. ed. Berol. 1766. 

g3. — hycBnas,] " Hyaenis utramque esse naturam, et alternis annis, 

mares, alternis feminas fieri, parere sine mare, vulgus credit " 

Plin. Hist. JVat. viii. 44. See also Clem. A lex and. Peed. ii. 10. 

85, 86. Or, like the aphis, by one impregnation, — Make mothers of their 
fourteenth generation.] Aphides, Vine-lice, Blighters, (called the gretn 
fly in Paxton's Magazine of Botany,) are a well-known troublesome 
little insect, of the order of Hemiptera, possessed of extraordinary fe- 
cundity. According to M. Bonnet, {(Euvres, T. i. Sur les Puccrons,) 
the impregnation of a single one of this family will fit its female off- 
spring for reproduction to the tenth generation, though kept in a perfectly 
secluded state. Our philosophic hero had doubtless carried the inter- 
esting experiment a little further. * * 

87., &c. Moreover, etc.] The second argument for the nuns' consola- 
tion: that, even if Monk's libel were not wholly false, yet their calamity 
might be the result of accident. * * 

87. — mares loill gender ivilh the gait;'] A well-known and ancient 
fable of the mares of Spain, or of that part of it which comprehended 
the present kingdom of Portugal, as Pliny tells it, who says: "Con- 
stat in Lusitania, circa Olysiponem oppidum et Tagum amnem, equas 



CANTO SECOND. 73 

Where feet of men had dabbled, thence grow great ; 
Your own chaste selves in dreams might titubate. 90 
There is no saying how these things take place. 
Yet, sin makes women mothers : why not grace ? 
All men at first are tadpoles, doctors think : 
Tadpoles are found in wells : the spring we drink : 
Drink lodges in the ventricle : thence, pray, 95 

May not Sir Tadpole find himself a way ? 

Favonio flante obversas animalem concipere spiritum, idque partum fieri, 
et gigni pernicissimum ita (no doubt) ; sed triennium vite non excedere.'* 
[HisLJVat.vuie?. Berol) ** 

88, 89. And maids, etc.] In those days, when Credulity thrived by 
the universal ignorance in matters of science, women profited by the 
darkness to lay their shame at the door of Accident: nor even at the 
present day is the superstition altogether rooted out ; and there where 
Credulity makes her last foothold, as she is driven backward step by step 
before the advance of Science, I mean among the unenlightened vulgar, 
the belief in conception by acceplion, so to speak, is actually still ob- 
scurely current, though of course never presented as a cover where the 
divinity of Venus Paiidemos finds few pretended infidels. See Aver- 
ROES, or, which is more convenient, as the works of the Mohammedan 
are scarce, the book of Mauriceau; who relates from the Moor the 
same instance of feminine effrontery profiting by popular ignorance. 

92. — tvhrj not grace ?] Ru beta's piety is never forgotten. Remark- 
able man! others in your place, even had they the wisdom to believe 
such things, would attribute them to chance ; it was reserved for you to 
unite true piety with sterling erudition ! * * 

93. M men at first are tadpoles, etc.] The third argument is another 
form of the last: that conception might be involuntary. The tadpole- 
theory is that of Leuwenhoek; but only the ingenuity of a Rubeta 
could draw from it the important deductions which follow, deductions 
that may change the features of an interesting branch of criminal 
jurisprudence, and abolish for ever the use of well-water by women 

under fifty. * * 

96. May not Sir Tadpole find himself a ivay^ Namely, into the 
ovum. See Smellie's Midwifery, p. 115, Vol. I. (2rf erf. Lond.) * * 

la 



74 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

The philosophic eye sees all things common, 
Though larks should swim, and heav'n rain frogs and 

salmon. 
Ah, happy they, the happiest of the fair, 
Whose early youth is mark'd by hoary hair ! lOO 



Ver. 98. — and heaven rain frogs and salmon.] See the newspapers 
for fish-stories. There is one comes appropriate just as we write, 
extracted by the N. Y. American, of July 27th, 1837, from some other 
journal, and which thus concludes : 

" Whether they ascended in [into] the clouds in spawn and there attained their 
present size, or whether they were drawn up in that [this] perfection, he" (the 
<' Dr. '' who " relates the astonishing fact/') " does not decide ; but, reason- 
ing from the fact that young frogs have been known to cover the ground after a 
heavy rain, he thinks it not improbable that the ethereal world might have rained 
these fishes." 

Such nonsense is of no modern date ; for Ctesias tells of a fountain 
in India which threw up so many fishes, that the neighbouring people, 
unable to gather them all, were forced to let them stink upon the sand. 

'Ev r« Xsyoftivy M-iTcch^i^a, Iitt) x^viyvj, ou» eXiyov ^ne-rtixuTci rm 3-aXdfffris, xu) 

ytpciiiy Sxrri (ih tvta.'iSoi.t oi iKiiai eixovvrts ffvWiyiiv alirohs, aXX' lav ret, vXita-Ta 
xu) o^uv IjTi T«j In^as. Cap. xxxii. 

99- 108. Ah, happy they, etc.] This story of the sixteen-fingered race 
gives occasion to much malevolent criticism among the commentators. 
One profanely asks : Where the devil did Ruby stumble over this absurdi- 
ty ? To which another pertly answers : " O somewhere in the kingdom 
of Bombay." Then, says a third, with much gravity of assurance : 
The author puts all this antique lore and decrepid stuff into the mouth 
of RuBETA in order to make a fool of him, and ridicule his pretensions 
to knoidedge: which calls forth an impudently tart addition from a 
fourth : That Rubeta makes quite enough of a fool of himself without 
assistance. Now, passing over the pertness of No. 2, because the line 
in the text about the kingdom of Bombay may be an error {Bombay for 
Cathay) of the reporter that took down the hero's story, or a gentle 
pleasantry of Rubeta's to save a long explanation to the nuns, Ave add 
that all these persons must be ignorant themselves of the greatest work 
of imagination of modern times : for in the very title-page of his " Tales 
and Sketches, — Such as they Are," does not the great Rubeta give us, 
for his epigraph, this expression, Scribimus indocti doctique ? Now let 



CANTO SECOND. 75 

What though their ears hang midway down their arm, 
And meeting backward, keep both shoulders warm ? 
Yet are ye bless'd, ye sixteen-finger'd wives ! 
Who never pup but once in all your lives ! 

Angelic lot ! And where their Eden ? say ! 105 
O somewhere in the kingdom of Bombay ; 
Where painless all their paradisiac doom, 
They cut their eyeteeth even in the womb. — 
Last thought of all, which prove ye undefil'd, 
Can woman's breasts forget her sucking child ? no 

us ask, whom does he mean by dodi but himself ? is not the word in 
the second place, which the modesty of grammar assigns it ? not to say 
that no man would call himself indoctus. " Scribimus indocti doc- 
tique : " 

Be common sense your part, unleUer''d loretches ! 

^Tis ours, the learned, to scribble Tales and Sketches. 
However, for the " absurdity," it is an exact version of a fable of 
Ctesias's, vouched for as fact by that veritable historian ; and which 
thus follows : 

E/V/y h roTs o^ifft rat? 'Iv^/xor?, oVoy o x.a.Xa.fjce{ uvrZv (putrai, av^^uToi, ro 
irXfi^as etUTuv a,^pi ko.) roiuv f^v^'ia.'^edv. Tovruv al yuvxTKis «5ra| tik-tovctiv Iv ru 
(iitu • xa/ ra riKro/:/,ivet oVovras 'i;^u xa.) ra civa xa) to. xa.ru <ravu xecXov; ' xxt rets 
r^ixetSf tai rt h t>j xi(pxX^ xeci ruTi e<p^vtfi, ToXia,? 'ix^i ^recvrtx, ix ysvsTjJf, xa.) 
rot 3-JiAsa xai ra. cippivet. M.ip(^^t fih ovv r^idxovra irZv Xivxas 'ix^t 'ixuaros ruv 
kvi^u-Ttm Ixilvuv rag r^ix^S ^'' o^<"J ''"'"^ ffufji.u.ro5 ' a^;(;avTa/ ^s ixiThv f/.iKamff6ai ' 
\lmovra. Ti iruv yivof/.ivuv, 'iartv lh7v uhro); ^afftts 'ixo^rcci f^Bkaims. "Exoi^o-t 
Se oSrot oi a.vS^ea'ffoi avoc oxru laxrvXovs If iKuri^a X^'i'* '^if^^'r^i «"« «»''''^ *=«< 
It) roTi TOff), ko) avt^t? xa) yvvaTxss ua-uvrus. * Ta dl dree, (fiyitri 

rnXixKvra. 'ix^v, utrn rovs (i^ax'oveis avrou u'T avrov xa.'kv'Xria6ai /^iXi' '^*"' 
iyxcovuv, xat o-rtirhv rhv vurov a-^avra ervyxaXv'rriiv ' ro ^s ovs ro irs^ov rod 
Iri^ou B-iyyoivti, 

Ex Ctesi^ Indicis excerp. ab Photio hist. Cap. xxxi: ad Jinem ed. 
Herodoti H. Steph. Franc. 1608. * * 

109-112. Last thought of all, ivhich prove ye undefiVd, — Can ivoman^s 
breasts, etc.] " Can a woman forget her sucking child ? It is not so ! 



76 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Hark ! 't is the voice of Nature sternly cries : 
RuB^ thou art right; that beast Maria lies! 

But, what to us, if ye have sinn'd or not ? 
Are we like him the great Sea-Ostrich got, 
Who made ten thousand women mount the skies ii5 
In smoke, because they could not cure his eyes ? 

The voice of indignant nature rises up to proclaim the falsehood ! " 
Visit to Montreal, &c. 

Though it is true, that if they strangled their habes, according to 
Monk as reported by Rubeta, the nuns could have no sucking children 
to forget, yet is this one of the most elegant passages of prose we 
ever remember to have read, even of that great man's composition. 
Certainly, with the exception of the single expression JRvb, thou art 
right, which admirably conveys in its familiar apocope the affection 
which Nature has for her favorite, the poetical version can in nothing 
compare with it. What graceful energy in that It is not so ! Then 
the image of the voice of Nature rising up ! and then the tenderness of 
this : Can a ivoman forget her sucking child ? 

" Comment diable ! vraiment 
C'est parler comme un ange."* * * 

114. — the great Sea-Ostrich — ] As we cannot believe that Rubeta 
meant to trifle with the ignorance of the poor recluses, we are inclined 
to consider this a mistake of the reporter's for great Sesostris. The 
Author leaves it uncorrected, evidently from a belief that Rubeta 
having heard the story somewhere, and imperfectly remembered it, 
made the very mistake, from ignorance and dulness, that we attribute 
to the reporter! Our note to v. 118, will satisfy the reader on this and 
all similar points in the poem. * * 

116, 116. Who made ten thousand women mount the skies — In smokcj 
because they could not cure his eyes"^] Pheron, son of Sesostris, 
having lost his sight for insulting the river Nile, was told by an oracle 
to wash the impaired organs with a liquid, which could only be made 

by a single-minded woman : (ywuiKes ov^u ririf va^a rev iulmt 

aviaec fioZvov vrt^eiTtixt, ttWuv av^^uv \oZ<rct ecrti^es.) Accordingly the prince 
set his wife to work ; but to no purpose : and it was only after trying a 
number of ladies, (whom the learned Rubeta here sets down as ten 

^ Vad£ : Le Trompeur Trompe ; Sc. vii. 



CANTO SECOND. 77 

Though to Mylitta all your vows were paid ; 
Though Pompey's gods defil'd jour garden's shade ; 



thousand,) that one was found who made the right sort of water. 
Whereupon, like a great beast as he was, Phero.n penned all the un- 
fortunate chemists together in a town, and setting fire to it, burned them 
up ; while the happy oculist ho took to wife, and ordered her to com- 
pound the liquor fresh for him every day in anticipation of a recurrence 
of the accident. 

All this, is it not told by Herodotus in the 111th chapter of his book 
which is called Euterpe ? * * 

117. Though to Mylitta nil your vov)s were paid;] That is, though 
you were perfect Babylonians. Mylitta was the Assyrian Venus : 

MuXirra. Tt xa\ioi<n rhv 'Aip^a^tTyiv ' Airirv^ioi ' Says HeRODOTUS, I. i. 199. — 

In order to understand the full force of the elegant Nun-Consoler's sup- 
position, see what the historian says in the same chapter with regard to 
the temple of Venus, and to a law of the Babylonians which he calls 

]i8. — PoMPEY — ] Probably Pompeii is meant: for what were Pom- 
pey's particular gods that they should be referred to here, is not very 
evident, while it is well known that the god of gardens was a favorite 
deity with the buried city and its subterrene neighbour. — This is another 
of the many occasions where the Comforter of Virgins is found to differ 
from common and received authority. Perhaps no better opportunity 
can offer for us to support our confident opinion of his accuracy by 
adducing one direct proof, in addition to the triumphant evidence, of a 
circumstantial nature, which has been either advanced by ourselves, or 
is to be found scattered delightfully through the pages of this magnifi- 
cent poem. Before, however, coming to this proof, it is necessary to 
premise the following passage from Rubeta's own pen. We make no 
apology, notwithstanding the space we shall occupy in our own story, 
for the length of the extract, since it is so rare one meets with so much 
elegance at the present day, that we should be inexcusable did we not 
give the piece entire. Thus : 

"Historical Work. — The editor of the New York Commercial Advertiser is about 
to wrife a history, and in order to give effect to details, and combine chronology with 
description, he will proceed to the place of historical interest, and gather oysters and facts 
upon the spot. Sachem's Head is the name of the place : it is situated on the Sound, and 
we may expect something worthy the fame of our contemporary, when he gives us his 
history. — U. S. Gazette.^' 

"Fair play, Mr. Gazette, and no gouging. Suppose you were about to write a 
history of Plymouth and its Conchology — and nobody could do that job, for that 
place, better than yourself — would you like to have the world informed of the fact. 



78 THE VtSION OF RUBETA. 

Though, like the lady in the crystal box, 

Each earn'd her hundred rings despite of locks ; 120 



so that while you were making your arrangements with that deliberation which 
becomes the dignity of a historian, every hungry scribbler might have a chance to 
hie himself [hie] thither, and pick up all the facts, and pick out all the oysters, before 
you reached the interesting field for antiquarian investigation yourself? Answer us 
that, Master Brook! The truth is, we are at this time engaged in writing another 
history \_Matlhias and his Impostures : 'an quidquam nobis tali sit munere majus ? '*] 
which we must finish, and you must review, before we go to Sachem's Head. Mean- 
lime see that you don't go there to anticipate us. Fiction is so much more popular 
than facts, that we should stand no chance at all, gleaning among the oyster shells 
that would be left by you. Therefore, be so good as to stand clear ! " N. Y. Comm. 
Adv. June 11th, 1835. 



" Circeis nata forent, an 



Lucrinum ad saxum, Rutupinove edita fundo 
Ostrea, callebat primo deprendere morsu."f 

We now proceed to our proof, which will be found enveloped in the 
following authentic account of the nature of this great man's forthcom- 
ing history of Sachem's Head. 

THE MSS. of VALLOMBROSA. 

As far as we could gather the story, which is as yet confined to the 
knowledge of but few persons, it is very curious, and to this effect : 

A monk of Vallombrosa, at the time when John Milton rested 
there, happened to discover under the Gothic characters of some monk- 
ish manuscripts certain valuable remains of antiquity, and among others, 
it is said, on the pages of a treatise on Uroscopy part of the lost Dec- 
ades of LivY ! In his joy at the discovery, he communicated its im- 
portance to the Poet, (with whom, from congeniality in many matters of 
taste, he was more familiar than his fellows,) but, as may be conjectured 
from the silence of the illustrious bard on this affair, without revealing 
its precise nature. The poet of Paradise, forgetting his honesty in his 
patriotism, used arguments so potent with the ambitious recluse, that 
the latter was persuaded to follow Milton to England, carrying with 
him his classic treasures, with a view to making them known there 
more to his personal advantage, as his friend had persuaded him, than 
he could do in Italy. Arriving at an inauspicious period, the poor 
monk, before even he could communicate with the Poet, was about to 
fall a victim to the misguided virtue of a party of Roundheads, who 
mistook the holy man for an emissary-pimp of the Virgin of Babylon. 

* ViRG. Ed. V. 53. t Juv. iv. 140. 



CANTO SECOND. 79 

Though jou could build a mound of infants' bones 
Higher than hers whose lovers brought her stones ; 

Alarmed for his life, still more for the safety of his papers, he took 
refuge with some royalists and papists on board a vessel, which sailed 
that very day for America. The ship was cast away near the spot 
destined to become so glorious by the pen of America's greatest poet, 
historian, and colonel ; and the monk alone escaped. Here he built 
himself a hut, supplied it from the wreck like Robinson, and like 
Robinson might have lived to return to his country and to tell his own 
story; but, unfortunately, unlike Robinson, he had no Friday, and 
the Indians one day scalped him, and, as the tradition raked up by 
the illustrious Rubeta delivers, ate him up ! Thus, had the parch- 
ment been in the monk's belly, thus, I say, would have ended the history 
of the MSS. of Vallombrosa ; but fortunately he appears to have 
buried them for security in two china pots of peculiar fashion, which 
had probably floated ashore, and which were found by our hero, one 
morning when digging for mushrooms, laid with their mouths together, 
and enveloped in a tarpaulin, sixteen feet below the surface of the 
ground. On them the monk had told his story in Latin, and had im- 
plored the fortunate finder, whoever he should be, to give to light 
those precious relics, for whose sake he, the Fra Ilario, was destined 
perhaps soon to perish. 

We need not add, that, from the known erudition of the great dis- 
coverer, the public may expect one of the richest treats in criticism that 
have been presented to the world since the days of Joseph Scaliger. 

N. B. One of the vessels used as repositories is said to be a great 
curiosity, and though as yet it has been exhibited to but a few select 
persons, ladies and antiquarians, an English inscription has been dis- 
covered on it quite legible, and supposed to be in the very hand- 
writing of the Lady Margaret Bellenden, showing that the pot 
in question was the identical p6t-de-chainbre consecrated by the use of 
his most sacred Majesty, Charles II, of happy memory, on the mem- 
orable occasion when he took his disjune in the tower of Tillie- 

TUDLEM. * * 

119, 120. Though, like the Lady of the crystal box, — Each earned her 
hundred ritigs despite of locks ;] See the story Avhich introduces the 
Arabian Tales of the Thousand and One Nights. * * 

121, 122. Though you could build a mound of infants^ bones — Higher 
than hers whose lovers brought her stones ;] See the account of Cheops' 
daughter and the middle pyramid, which she built to the height of a 
hundred and fifty feet by the aid of her lovers, each of whom brought 
her a stone : Herod. II. cxxvi. * * 



80 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Though not the Banian's double goddess-queen 
Had more capacity to be obscene ; 
Nay, though Keboski's dames, — maids, widows, 
wives, 125 

Were ne'er so trampled on in all their lives ; 
Still ye are women : all I ask ; for know ! 
No turkey ever peck'd me like Boileau : 

Ver. 123, 124. Though not the Banian's double goddess-queen — Had 
more capacity to be obscene;] See that dangerous * and frequently false 
book of Helvetius's, De C Esprit ; Essay ii. chap. 14. 

125, 126. JVcf?/, though Keboski's dnvies — ff'ere ne'er so trampled on — ] 
See the incredible stories in the "Collection of Voyages of the Dutch 
East India Company," of which this is not the least preposterous one, 
that the women of Formosa, (or Keboski, as the island is called by 
the natives,) are not permitted to bring forth till after the age of thirty- 
seven, and if any prove pregnant before that period, that the priestess, 
(the "rough-shod priests" of Ruby's Visit,) delivers them very speedily 
from the sin of premature maternity by treading on the womb. * * 

128. JVo turkey ever peck''d me like Hoileau .-] That is, I never soiiiize 
your sex. Boileau is said to have owed the causticity of his spirit 
where women were concerned, and his antipathy to gallantry, to a 
turkey-cock. Supposing the story to be any thing but the invention of 
his enemies, I cannot see that it is at all necessary to account for the 
severity of his muse upon the ladies. It is not those who love the sex 

* All books are dangerous whose morality is liable to be misinterpreted. — It is this 
consideration which should have prevented the author of the Confessions of a Poet 
(a work noticed both in Canto iii. and Canto iv.) from publishing, even in a foreign 
language, opinions, which, however founded in reason, may exercise an undesign- 
edly pernicious influence with the weak, and by the unprincipled will be invariably 
adopted as at once tlie creed and the absolution of their errors : (see the French 
notes in that novel. =i) Truth, though always to be told, is not to be volunteered at 
all times : an improvement of an adage, which is only impugned by those who are 
the very last to permit its rule to be infracted. ** 

a One example : 

When winding up his reasons for presenting these notes in a foreign dress, he says: 
" Le temple de la nature ne doit s'ouvrir qu'a ceux qui en puisse contempler lea mysteres 

sans devenir aveugles." The girls of Mdme. — 's seminary, and the little pupils of 

Mdme. , must have strong eyes. * * 



CANTO SECOND. 81 

My code is this : Whatever be the wrong, 
Women are right, — big, little, short, or long. 130 
This is not said to flatter, I assure ye : 
I 've prov'd it in the teeth of judge and jury. 

who always speak the most favorably of it ; reason and passion being 
generally at loggerheads : and as the famous Sixth of Juvenal does not 
show that the poet wanted a beard, so Despreaux, who has scarcely an 
idea which is not borrowed from the ancients, might easily indulge 
his wit without drawing on the coldness of his complexion. 

Very true, as far as that poet's own sarcasms are concerned ; but Boileau's 
well-known severity, to any thing hke gallantry in the writings of others, can only 
be attributed to a coldness of temperament that is certainly evident in the frigid 
chasteness of his compositions. M. Bret says, in his edition of Moli^re {Aver- 
tissement sur Amphitnjon) : " L'ami particulier de notre auteur, Despreaux lui- 
Ineme, si I'on en croit le Bolceana, ne pouvait soufFrir les tendresses de Jupiter et 
d'Alcmene, et surtout cette scene ou le Dieu joue si ingenieusement sur les 
termes d'epoux et d'amant. L'humeur de Boileau, a cet egard, annon^ait bien 
celle que devait lui donner la galanterie de I'esprit de Quinault." And again, 
{Observations sur Amphitrtjon,) " La galanterie du r^gne sous lequel Moli^re 
ecrivait, lui a fourni des ressoUrces ingenieuses, mais dont son ami Despreaux 
faisait peu de cas." Therefore the story of the ferocious turkey may be very true j 
though it must be allowed that men may lack the fire of Rubeta without the 
agency of fowls. * * 

132. / 'i;e proved it in the teeth of judge and jury.] See in the Com- 
mercial Adv. of July 13th, 1835, Rubeta's notice of a suit for breach 
of promise between a journeyman-housepainter and a country girl 
where the former, to the great indignation of the gallant Colonel, was 
plaintiff. The court did their duty ; but the squire of dames enlisted all 
his sympathies in the cause of the unfortunate fair one, took a dose of 
cantharides directly, and poured out his thunder in the very spirit of 
Burke. " Yes," said he, 

" Yes 5 in this ' age of refinetnent,' — this ' noblest country under Heaven,' a man 
has been found of such peculiar temperament, to use no harsher term, as to make a 
traffic of the feelings of a woman whom he professed to love ; to use the power 
which her confiding simplicity and inexperience had given him, as a means of 
gratifying his avarice 5 with assurance enough to come openly before the world 
with letters of the girl, written in moments of artless and unsuspecting confi- 
dence, and with the certainty, of course, of being shown up as the author of the 
letters bearing his signature, — of which, under the like circumstances, we would 
certainly prefer paying the thousand dollar verdict, than to be the writer ; — and — 
tell it not in London, — publish it not in the streets of Edinburgh, — a New York 
. 11 



82 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

No ! by the immortal spirits of the fair 

Who glitter in my Tales, — by these I swear, 

jury has been willing to lend him aid and countenance in his purpose ! Well 
might Burke exclaim ' the age of chivalry is gone ! ' " 

How much was Burke mistaken ! We, it is true, who are too old to 
feel this working of the spirit, and who have abandoned Venus for 
Minerva, we, I say, cannot well conceive of there being excited by a 
just decision such a sublime fury as rages in this, and in the preceding 
part, (which want of space obliges us most reluctantly to omit,) of Ru- 
beta's eloquent tirade : but can we, not the less, admire, reverence, 
adore. 

" Come sit thee down upon this flowery bed, 
While I thy amiable cheeks do coy. 
And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head. 
And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy." ^ 
JV. B. It is Avith much deference that we modestly suggest to the 
chivalrous advocate of " sensibility " and of the unalienable rights of 
woman to do wrong, that he adopt the advertisement of Mr. Badeau's 
celebrated Plaster ; which is thus : 

"A CARD TO THE LADIES. 
" The subscriber's opinion of the female mind and character is too far exalted 
to suppose for a moment, that the ladies of this city and elsewhere, to whom this 
Card is politely addressed, can be cajoled or flattered to patronize him, but wishes 
to address himself to their good sense only. They are respectfully informed, that 
* Badeau's celebrated Strengthening Plasters,' were prepared with special reference 
to their favor, etc. etc." 

It is, as Sterne says,f but changing Badeau's celebrated Strengthening 
Plasters into Rubetd's eloquent Dissertations, and saying nothing about 
coughs and asthmas, and the Card is a right good one. You will find 
it, eloquent sir, in the N. Y. American, directly over the feeling address 
to the public of one Dr. Horne. 

133, 134. JVo ! by the immortal spirits of the fair — Who glitter in my 
Tales, — by these 1 sivear,] After repeated consideration of this splen- 
did passage, we put it far before the famous oath of Demosthenes 
quoted and commented on by Longinus. Let us consider the two. 
What says Demosthenes ? 0«» iW/v oW? n/^d^riTt, oh fjt.a. rovs h Mag«- 
fiuvt ^^oxiv^vvivffavTas' t You have not erred, my countrymen ! Ao .' by 
those who jeoparded their lives for you at Marathon ! And what is the 
object of this apostrophe to the valiant dead .^ To justify his own ill 

* TiTANiA to Bottom : Mid. NighVs Dream. t Sentim. Jmrney. * * 

\ De Sublim. xvi. ex ed. Pearcii. 



CANTO SECOND 83 

'T would grieve Rubeta's bowels, ev'n to vex 135 
The Devil himself, were he to change his sex ! 
Then let us on, nor waste those hours in tea, 
Which promise you revenge,— fame, gold, to me. 
Let down your tails ; in grave procession pass ; 
Your champion leads, your own predestin'd ass ! 140 

conduct, and make the Atheinans satisfied with their defe^at. Now 
LONGINUS says: "E<rr,^\ d rl oTToxrod, nvk hf^'ort,, fi'(y«, rl h ^ov, ««i eT«;, 
x«) W -V .«..-' -' --^ --^•'^ ^"^ '^ '' ^"^ ^^' ''"'"' adjuration invests 
the oath with grandeur; but the where, and the how, and the occasions 
when, and the cause for which. And in all these points, how great the 
superiority of our hero! If the Athenian orator addresses his to his 
countrymen at a time when they were sore for their misfortunes, and 
disposed to throw the blame thereof on him, when, in a word, they 
were gloomy and irritable, the Manhattanese employs his figure at 
the very moment when he had discharged all the arguments of conso- 
lation he could bring to bear upon the distress of the nuns, thus seizing 
their minds at the desired heat and bending them to his purpose by this 
tremendous blow of the double-handed hammer of his eloquence Is 
the cause in question? By how much the disgrace of the nuns, and the 
slander of their reputation, are of more moment than the defeat of the 
Athenian arms, and the loss of the battle of Cheron^a, and by how 
much women are of greater count than men, by so much does the 
Gazetteer surpass the Orator. And if the manner is to be considered, 
with what advantage does the propriety, the artfulness, the energy, the 
grace, of the eloquent Modern stand beside that of the Ancient ! De- 
mosthenes gives immortality to those who were already dead, and 
who therefore, had it as their right; Rubeta deifies the creatures of 
his own imagination, who never had existence, and therefore could 

not die. 

« No ! by the immortal spirits of the fair 
Who glitter in my Tales, — by these I swear : " 
Kcced'^ig Xli.'xumh), l|«;^.^? 5*« ^^oZ, Kx) etm) (poi^'oX^'^rcs ysv^Vsy.j. f And 
then the compliment of bringing these pure beings of his own crea- 
tion, the Christina-Diefendorffs of his very Tales before the suspected 
nuns' What art! What mastery over the passions! What expres- 
sion in the words "Who glitter!'' glitter in his Tales! Is it not like 

* De Sublim. xvi. ex ed. Pearcii. + ^^^- 



84 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

But mark, what now befell ! Just when, with grace, 
I rose to head the veiPd chlorotic race, 
Green Father Richards left the Mother's side, 
Too well with tea and sugarplums supply'd, 
Cross'd the spread board, and, stepping on my arm. 
Rose to my peak : here perch'd, while in alarm ue 
I cry'd. Dear Sir, donH make your pulpit there! 
Unloaded all his stomach in my hair. 

hanging a pair of diamond earrings before the eyes of his hearers ? 
How must they have coveted a like distinction ! How promised to 
themselves to endeavour to be worthy of it ! Yes ! thine is the palm, 
RuBETA ! Yes, by thine own reviews ! by those which figure in each 
Saturday's American ! by the Longinistic pen of Adam Waldie ! 

148. Unloaded all his stomach — ] Commentators find fault with this 
relation as incredible, and impugn thereon Rubeta's tried veracity, — 
Rubeta's ! A note, by an unknown hand, then adds that there is no 
miracle whatever ip the matter; that a very simple operation of Nature's 
is intended to be expressed under a poetic guise ; it being but necessary 
to understand by stomach the lower intestines, and to take the adjective 
all as elegantly reduplicative, to render the passage clear enough. All 
of which is superfluous commentary, Rubeta does not mean a fecular 
discharge, but that the bird did actually relieve his loaded stomach, and 
of course by the bill ; for observe, in a line above he tells us, that the 
reverend father ate too many sugarplums, and bibbled too much tea, the 
Lady Superior doubtless either too absorbed by the hero's eloquence to 
notice the intemperance, or weakly indulgent to her favorite's appetites, 
Besides, pigeons are well known to evacuate the contents of the 
stomach by the throat, and this at pleasure. We would recommend 
to the notice of the commentators aforesaid, but " with a difference," 
"jvhat the mighty Cell-explorer has himself observed : 

"The philosophic eye sees all things common. 
Though birds should vomit like a seasick ivoman," * * 

There can be little question that the excellent Editor is quite out 
here. The note by an unknown hand is more plausible. 

Corrector, 



CANTO SECOND. 85 

Then would the nymph, whose pipe assuages pain, 
With roseate hand remove the sacred stain. 150 

Touch not! I cry'd ; there let the unction stay, 
Chaplet at once, and omen of the day : 
Not now the first time Heav'n has spoke by birds ; 
And know ye not whose skull press'd fame from 
common curds ? 

Then rose the hawk-bilPd Mother-nun, and said, i55 
While the sweat stood like bead-drops on her head : 
Go now, my son ; lead on our virgin pow'rs ; 
Fate and my parrot mark this day as ours. 
For this, I tingle with prophetic fire : 
My pains are fled ; and see, how I perspire ! 160 

Ver. 149. — the nymph whose pipe assuages pain,] Cltstera, doubt- 
less. * * 

152. Chaplet at once, and omen of the day :] This line we explain in 
the following manner. Rubeta considers the unction as a reward of 
what he had already done in the delivery of his incomparable oration, 

the parrot being undoubtedly the bird of eloquence, — and as an 

omen of success in the intended enterprise, by indicating that all the 
filth of Monk's aspersions was henceforth, removed from the nuns for- 
ever, to rest upon his own head. 

JVote. We are conscious of extending by such comments the time 
of reading this episode to an unconscionable length ; but our desire of 
illustrating every step of this great man's splendid actions, and of show- 
ing the full pith of all his words, will excuse us ; and even the Reader 
shall find his recompense, in the satisfaction of knowing to the core the 
illustrious and extraordinary being, to whom modern times have given 
birth for the admiration of the world and the eternal glory of his native 
Connecticut. * * 

154. And know ye not, etc.] Don Quixote's, through the modesty of 
Sancho. 



86 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Here, on this oaken stool, I take my stand. 

Thus o'er that lovely head extend my hand : 

My hour is come ; Fate's forceps aids the pain ; 

And Truth celestial issues from my brain. 

Be bold : I see, now, now, thy triumph nigh ! 165 

I see my ass spirt fountains to the sky ! 

Trapdoors and children disappear at once ! 

Slander is mute, and Malice proves a dunce. 

'T is done ! No more Monk's impious fires burn : 

Back floats the train — But ah ! its glad return 170 

Gladdens not me : for, now thy labors end, 

Thy wife calls home — Adieu ! my son ! my friend ! 

No more those saintly lips shall Boiteuse see, 

No more that voice recall my dream to me, 

No more shall beam those eyes these eyes before, i75 

Nor little rounded belly pant — No more ! 

Behold Manhattan pouring forth her sons : 

Her Wit returns, — her evening-prince of puns ! 

Ver. 176. — no more ! ] Not the A'U «?, of the Greek tragedian, nor 
the Mai piu of the modern Italian, is half so mournful as this JVo more ! 
One may see the Lady Superior overcome with grief, hear her voice 
broken with sobbing, and witness the struggle in her bosom as she 
strives for utterance of the anguish she feels in anticipation of the loss 
of the hero's company. How amiable must be the person, how extra- 
ordinary his merit, to make so deep an impression in so brief a visit ! 
177 - 182. Behold Manhattan^ etc.] * * 

Post triste exilium, patriis cum redditus oris, 
Lsetitiam ingentem populorum, omnesque per urbes 
Accipies plausus, et laetas undique voces, 
Votaque pro reditu persolvent debita matres. 

ViD^ Poet Lib. i. v, 21 -25. 



CANTO SECOJND. 87 

Hark ! the green wharves his Visit hawk for sale ; 
The Visit, gin and oyster shops retail : 180 

Erin in Elm-street toasts the darling boy, 
And Chatham's orange-women sob for joy. 

Thus shall thy home do honor to thy parts. 
Nor deem that here we bear ungrateful hearts. 
What though, poor maids, (most poor in worldly 

sense !) 185 

We cannot line thy pantaloons with pence, 
Yet may we mount thy virtues to the sky, 
And place thy name with thousand saints on high. 
Thus for thy brow a double wreath shall twine, 
Honor'd alike as human and divine. 190 

While monks wear cowls and nuns Italian crape, 
While bears and newsmen lick their cubs to shape. 
While curs with kicks, and fools with laughter meet. 
Thy name shall be as common as the street. 



Ver. i&i. — Elm-street — ] A locality of the Five-points^ the Si, 
Giles's of New York. 
191-194. While monks, eic.'] 

Dum juga montis aper, fluvios dum piscis amabit, 
Dumque thymo pascentur apes, dum rore cicadse, 
Semper honos nomenque tuum laudesque manebunt. 

ViRG. Ed. V. 7Q. 

The great Mantuan was so fond of this passage as to imitate 
himself: 

In freta dum, tic. Mn. L 607-610* 

191. — and nuns Italian crape,] " They wear a black Italian crape 
cap." — Visit to Montreal, &c. 



88 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

No barren title hence shall feed thine ear ; 195 

Colonel alone, or paltry Gazetteer ; 
But wits shall emulous rehearse thy praise, 
These in loose prose, and those in measur'd lays : 
Broadway's gay shops thy honor'd bust shall deck, 
With lengthen'd ears and horizontal neck ; 20& 

That men shall say, when, thronging near to see, 
They recognise thy face w^ith sober glee, 
JVhat ivill not love of fame and gold inspire ! 
Behold the ass that quenched the convent-fire ! 

Yes, not forgotten, though we bid adieu, 205 

Thy name shall live while tow'rs the Hotel Dieu : 
Rais'd by thy sanctity dear saint of maids. 
That kiss thy toe in all their thousand needs. 
Thy shrine shall stand immortal as St. Paul's, 
And little St. Rubetas stock our walls ! 210 

Then '' St. Rubeta ! " quaver'd near and wide 
The nuns' shrill pipes : the cloisters ^Beta sigh'd : 
^Eta, the empty plates, the empty bowls reply'd. 



Ver. 195-198. JVo barren title hence shall feed thine ear; — Col(met 
alone, etc. 

At tua non titulus capiet sub stemmate facta ; 
iEterno sed erunt tibi magna volumina versu, 
Convenientque tuas cupidi componere laudes 
Undique, quique canent vincto pede, quique soluto. 
Carm. ad Messalam panegyr. — Tibdlli Lib. iv. Carm. 1, v. 33-36. 
ed. Heyne. Lips. 1777. 

212, 213. — the cloisters 'Beta sigh'd : — *Eta, the empty plates^ the empty 
bowls reply'd.] How readily manners are communicated ! Yet could 



CANTO SECOND. 89 

But, rang'd in column, stand the vestal train. 
Six virgins undergo the mystic cane. 215 

we, but for this his own evidence, have believed that Rubeta had hap- 
pily infected, or inoculated (if this word were as much applicable as 
it is more respectful), the very walls and furniture of the convent with 
his taste for joking? — By the by, the sighing, which the cloisters in- 
dulged in, must have been of that pleasing kind which is unmixed with 
pain ; 

Not soche sorowfull sighes as men make 

For wo, or els whan that folke be sike. 

But easie sighes ; 
{Sde Booke of Troilus, Chaucer's Woorkes, 1561, fol. clxxiii :) 
for they could not regret that the presence which inspired them was to 
be canonized despite his Protestantism, and thus rendered more proper 
for their love and admiration. In the same sense the platters might be 
said "to weep, yet scarce know why." 

We would further remark, what seems to have escaped the Poet, that 
the passage in the text bears a resemblance to one in Virgil's 

Daphnis : 

Ipsi Isetitia voces ad sidera jactant 
Intonsi montes ; ipsse jam carmina rupes, 
Ipsa sonant arbusta : Deus, deus ille, Menalca I v. 61 - 63. 
and again to one in Ovid : 

Flebile nescio quid queritur lyra, flebile lingua 
Murmurat exanimis ; respondent flebile ripse. 

Metam. xi. 52, 53. * * 
By permission, we suggest, that the regret of so soon losing the Prince were suffi- 
cient cause for the feeble tones in which the acclaim was repeated. What other 
feeling, except weakness could shorten it so well into Beater and Eater? — If our 
poor sense should be thought of importance, we shall be a proud man ; for we feel the 
same love growing on us for the hero, with which his transcendent virtues have justly 
animated the historian of his actions and the editor of his fame. Compositor. 

215. — mystic — ] I suppose, as having occult virtues ; to which the 
hero has alluded in one or two places already : — 

What present honor waits this rod divine 
Yourself shall witness, Mother, ere you dine : 

Canto i. v. 437, 438. 
And a little below. 

Dead babe hope not to hide. 
Nor friar's sandal, where this wand is guide ! 
Aided by which, shall pierce your very stones 
My eagle eyes, and find those little bones ! 

76.455-458. ** 
12 



90 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

So, in Otranto's castle of affrights, 
The sword is shoulder'd by a hundred knights. 
I marshall'd all, and help'd them hook their tails. 
Then plac'd me at their front, proud Captain of the 

Veils. 
As when, Aquarius chaining up the deep, 220 

Wedg'd in the solid bay whole navies sleep ; 
But Caurus keen, with Boreas forc'd to fly, 
To milder Notus yields the gelid sky ; 
Parting in fragments huge, sweeps out to sea 
The rifted ice : the expectant vessels, free, 225 

Spread their broad wings, and, sidelong through the 

spray, 
In long succession take their vary'd way. 
So, the refection o'er, and blessing said. 
Onward we sail, our course no mpre delay'd ; 
I, deeply fraught, a ship of thousand tons 230 

Bound for Cathay ; the lighter craft, the nuns. 
Ev'n thus the gander heads his female stock ; 
So bears the bell the whether of the flock. 

Ver. 216, 217. So, in Otkanto's castle of affrights, — The sword is shoul- 
dered by a hundred knights.] It sometimes happens that a book which 
shall have made, however unjustly, a reputation in its day, retains the 
same long after the test which Time is supposed to apply in all such 
cases ; and this because men are too lazy or too timid to think for them- 
selves, or, slaves to the tyrant Opinion, dare not own they do so. 

231. — Catbay — ] The old name for Chijna : so used by the poet of 

the Seasons : 

Save when its annual course the caravan 

Bends to the golden coast of rich Cathay^ 

With news of human kind. Winter, 806. 



CANTO SECOND. 91 

We make the port : before us frown the cells. 
Set down the staff, — I cry'd, — time-honor'd belles! 
And now attend. 'T is said, unlike her sex, 236 

The cloister'd maiden glories to perplex; 
That on our nose jou '11 lay a guiding hand, 
And fill these eyes at will with convent-sand. 
But prythee look, sweet spirits, ere you leap ! 240 
Nor think to catch an Argus fast asleep. 
Ay, by those graceful skirts which I adore, 
I '11 close my lids, and stand stock still, before ! 
Resolv'd I am, (and, saving Heav'n on high, 
Naught the resolves can melt of such as I,) 245 

Resolv'd I am, to search you through and through ; 
From vault to chimney-top ; each door undo, 

Ver. 235. — time-honored — ] "Time-honor'd Lancaster." Rich. ii. 
An epithet that must have been peculiarly grateful to the venerable 
spinsters, now " past age." * * 

238, 239. That on our nose you HI lay a guiding hand, — ^nd Jill these 
eyes at will with convent-sand.] 

"I said to them frankly," (a very common euphem'\sm (or impudently,) " that I 
had been admonished * of their arts of deception, and had been told that they would 
mislead me at every turn, and throw dust in my eyes at their own pleasure." 
Visit, etc. 

240. — sweet spirits — ] The hero uses this same tender appellation 
in his published narrative. * * 

243. / 7/ close my lids, and stand stock still — ] This ingenious way 
of preventing the catastrophe with which he was threatened cannot be 
too much admired. * * 

246- 251. Resolved I am, etc.] 

— " that I was resolved to scrutinize the whole structure, in all its ramifications, 
from garret to cellar, — to lift every trap-door, — to inspect every secret vault, — 
unbar every door, — search every cellar, — and thread every subterranean passage." 
Visit, etc. 

* Stonington dialect for advised, informed, or perhaps tvarne.d. Joannes Gramm. de 
Anglo -Americanm LingucB Dialectis. 



92 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Lift ev'ry trap, explore each secret nook, 

Inspect jour closets, in your night-pans look. 

Walls, vessels, urinals, chests, cupboards, sound, 250 

And thread your pleasure-gardens under ground ! 

This will I do, Maria's self to guide ! 

Her luscious parts, lo ! mark'd by dog's-ears wide. 

Therefore I trust ye will not feel surprise. 

If aught that is peculiar meet these eyes. 255 

Fear not, says Putain : Dear ! Pucelle and I 
Will show you any thing you wish to spy. 

Then first Garotte's trim chamber glads the 
view. 
Green was the couch ; green hung the valance too. 
Two tall-back'd chairs in green old age are there, 260 
Desk, crucifix, and books of holy pray'r. 
Dear, simple dormitory ! Zion's head 
Might catch repose upon thy cat-tail bed ! 
Next Plainchant opens ; and the soft Serin. 
Church-anthems spread their choral sheets within. 265 

Ver. 252. — Maria's self to guide /] 

— "my determination was to make the examination book in hand, and refer to its 
pages as occasion might require. Such was the course pursued." Visit, etc. 

253. Her ItLscious parts, lo ! marked hj dog's-ears wide.] 

"A few passages for special reference were marked in pencil, and the leaves turned 
down at others." Ibid. 

254 - 257. Therefore I trust ye will not ftel surprise, etc. ] 

— "that consequenily I trusted they would be neither displeased nor surprised, cte. 
They replied, etc." Ibid. 

262. — Zion's — ] Ixion's. — The word in the text should doubtless 
be written thus : ^XiorVs; the / being cut off by a very natural apharesis. 



CANTO SECOND. 93 

Gris(eil, thy room; thine too, Noirceil, we tread; 
Turn up thy valance, and inspect the bed. 
Thine, pale Chlorosis ; Leucorrhea, thine ; 
Fragrant of cordials, labelPd Feminine. 
Next stir the sheets by Boiteuse nightly press'd. 270 
There, Gray, thy Patent Ointment stinks confess'd ! 
In Putain's corners dart our critic eye : 
And quit, Pucelle, thy chamber with a sigh. 
Then Phlebotemna's lancets shock the sight, 
And Swedish leeches chill me with affright. 275 

But lo ! Clystera's bladders dun display'd. 
Dear, slender tubes ! how oft we 've bless'd thy aid ! 

Indeed, both the copy in the library of the Olivetans at Naples, and 
that in the Ambrosian library at Milan, read: 

Dear, simple dormiture ! Ixion's head : 
and, notwithstanding the word dormiture is without authority, except in 
its rugged contraction dorture, we confess we prefer this reading. 

If any letter were cut off it would be the o, or our ear is sadly out: 
Dear, simple dormit'ry ! Ixion's head: 
besides, my eldest boy, who has been a year at College, tells me 
the / in Ixion is long, as he calls it, and is sounded hard and full : 
therefore, so exact a scholar as Rubeta would not have slurred it. 
The text must be right. Corrector. 

263. Might catch repose upon thy cat-tail hed !] 

" The unsophisticated reader may perhaps think these ' cells ' are very dark and 
gloomy places, with stone floors, and lock and bars, and grates. No such thing," 
says Ruby. "They are neat little apartments, containing a single bed," etc. 
Visit, etc. 

269. Fragrant of cordials, labeWd Feminine.-] "The Female Cordial 
of Health," we suppose. See the N. Y. American, 1837. * * 

271. _ Gbav, thy Patent Ointment stinks confessed!], "Gray's Pat. 
Ointment, for the cure of White Swellings, etc. etc." See the Man- 
hattanese newspapers. * * 



94 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Destin'd, that night, to know thy power most bland 
When minister'd by woman's feeling hand. 
Then, crossing Hydropique's unwelcome sill, 280 
We hover o'er thy nest, star-ey'd Fretille ! 
And so, through all the chambers, twice eighteen : 
Turn'd down the sheets, and beat the covers green. 
In every spot my patrimonial cane 
Its iron finger thrust, but thrust in vain. 285 

Loud laugh'd Fretille, and gravely smil'd her mates, 
To see their missals search'd for wicked plates. 
But, nothing dash'd, I prob'd the very locks. 
And rak'd the keyhole twice for infants' socks : 
Then peep'd beneath the valance, bending knee : 290 
But nothing there was hid, but what should be. 

This done, the train descend, with added strength, 
Where stretch the vaults their dark, suspicious length. 

Ver. 282, 283. And so, through all the chambers, etc. — Turn'd down, etc.] 

— "examining every apartment with the most deliberate and eagle-eyed attention. 
We visited the cells of the nuns, and examined their furniture, etc. etc. Every door, 
of every room, closet, and pantry, was readily opened at my request, etc." Visit, etc. 

266. Loud laughed Fretille, and gravely smiVd her mates, — To see 
their missals search'd — ] 

" The books, so far as we looked at them, were such as good protestants might 
become still better by reading." " — so pleasant was their laughter at some of our re- 
marks/' [no doubt,] "that I asked them in badinage," [a favorite expression with 
RuBETA of which we do not know the meaning,] " what right they had to laugh, — 
that in such a place their business must be to look grave and gloomy, and never 
smile ! " [Pleasant fellow ! ] Ibid. 

288. — probed the very locks,] 

— " there was not an apartment in either story which I did not examine with the 
closest scrutiny, from jfloor to ceiling. — " Ibid. 

292. — with added strength,] 

— "being soon joined by several additional members of the sisterhood, who ac- 
companied us through our examination." Ibid. 



CANTO SECOND. 95 

Once more I range their virgin ranks, but place 
The fresh recruits, all novices, in face. 295 

Fair postulants ! and ye ! w^hose riper years 
Man may not guess, until he see your hairs, 
(Save one like me, instructed in the sex,) 
Regard these walls. Nov^s mark this stick of sticks ! 
Greater than that, which Amram's prophet-son 3oo 
Wav'd o'er the Coptic land, when, one by one, 
Egypt's first-born saw each his woolly poll 
Swarm like a lazar's back in Estambol; 
Or that which bade, still bright in changeless youth. 
Thy chok'd-up waters flow, monastic Ruth 1 305 

Set but the point to yon gray wall, behold. 
Its sullen rocks their secrets straight unfold : 

Ver. 294, 295. — hut place — The fresh recruits, all novices, in face.] 
The object of this arrangement may be conjectured from v. 75, 76: 

"Rubeta's only vice. 

Save lying, is to have an eye too nice.'''' * * 
296. — postulants — ] So Rubeta calls the novices, by an alias of 
explanation, in his " Visit." 
296,297. —ye! whose riper years — Man may not guess, until he see 

your hairs,] 

" This " (the " bandeau ") " is a white linen band bound round the forehead, and 
reaching down to the eyebrows, so as to conceal the hair entirely." Rub. of the cos- 
tume of the black nuns. — " Visit, etc." 

302, 303. —saw each his woolly poll— Swarm, etc.] Herodotus, 
speaking of the Colchians, gives as a reason for supposing they were 
of Egyptian origin, that like the Egyptians they were Hack, and had 
short woolly hair. {Euterpe, civ.) And as he says, {lb. xxxvi,) that the 
Egyptians have their heads closely shorn, the populousness of the^^oW^ 
might as easily be seen as felt. * * 

304, 305. Or that which hade, still hright in changeless youth,— Thy 
chok'd-up waters flow, monastic Ruth!] The feat of mein Heir Dou- 
STERSwivEL. See the Antiquary, (Vol. I. chap. 2. Parker's edition.) 



96 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

What hapless vestals there are bury'd quick ; 
How long ere common cement learns to stick. 

This said, my arm directs the rod edgewise. 3io 
I listen : but no smother'd voice replies. 
Mute with amaze, my orbs I roll around ; 
With rapid stride, survey the hostile ground. 
Three times, in rage, each angle I explore ; 
Three times I smote : still stubborn as before ! 3i5 
Three times my weary loins I rest upon the floor. 
Grasp'd by the middle, then, I raise the wand. 
Stride back a pace, and, with a mighty bound. 
Rapid as thunder, on the frowning rock 3X9 

Rush'd dire. Earth's entrails tremble at the shock. 
Quiver'd the rod ; the frighten'd nuns leap'd back : 
But for the roof, escap'd that horrid crack, 
The Sun himself had shrunk, and Heav'n had gone 
to wrack. 



Ver. 312. Mute with amaze, my orbs I roll around; — With rapid 
stride, etc.] 

Ecce ! furens animis aderat Tirynthius ; omnemque 
Accessum lustrans hue ora ferebat et illuc, 
Dentibus infrendens. Ter totum, fervidus ira, 
Lustrat Aventini raontem ; ter saxea tentat 
Limina nequidquam ; ter fessus valle resedit. 

ViRG. Ml. viii. 228-232. 
320, 321. — Earth's entrails tremble at the shock. — Quivered the rod ; 
the frightened nuns leaped back ;] 

Impulsu quo maximus insonat sBther ; 

Dissultant ripse, refluitque exterritus amnis. 

Ibid. 239, 240. 



CANTO SECOND. 97 

I pause, take breath, perspire, give ear. In vain. 
Jesu ! what 's that ? The echo of the cane. 325 

Alas, no groan ! not even hingeless bones 
Send out their clang, to turn us all to stones. 
And yet I listen'd ! — Never mother's ear 
So lon^'d her first-born babe's first word to hear, 
When, its sweet eyes upturn'd to meet her eyes, 330 
Prone in her arms the smiling infant lies, 
Its dimpled fingers toying with her breast. 
By its small lips the rosy fountain prest, 
While views the sire with joy his imag'd face, 
And strains the mother in his fond embrace. 335 

No smother'd voice ! reechoes but the rock ; 
And the gray mortar, stubborn, stands the shock. 

With joy whose foreheads show no wanton hairs, 
In disappointment I, ascend the stairs. 

Ver. 324. I pause, take breath, etc.] In other editions : 

" Shook, not dismaifd, I pause to hear: in vain." 
What a morally sublime picture does this present! the courage of one 
man alone unshaken, when all nature was in fits, and the hard-bound 
Earth herself shook with a colic ! * * 

327 - stones.] Some of the copies write this word with a capital S, 
and explain the phrase as implying something excessively stupid ! What 
they mean I know not. Perhaps it is a proper name. But the sense is 
unnecessary, and even frivolous when compared with that of the present 

text ^ * 

32^-335. -Aei;er mother^s ear- So longed, etc.] Here we have 
another instance how strikingly the illustrious subject of this poem re- 
sembles the hero of the ^neid. Says Bossu : " L'En6ide est toute dans 
les passions tendres et douces, parceque c'est le caractere d Enee. 
Du Poeme Epique, Liv. iii. (p. 227. Ed. 1693. Pans.) 
13 



98 THE VISION OF RUBETA, 

Yet, true to policy, unovvn'd the smart, 340 

Comrades, — I said, with double Ajax' art, — 
Forc'd by the rod, yon vaults have spoke. Not there 
The secret lies. Up, girls ; we search elsewhere. 
Lead, postulants. What fear ? Rubeta feels 
No rude desire to shame your modest heels. 345 

Like as, where Cancer's tropic girds the main. 
When the soft Trade-winds sweep its placid plain, 
The brown weed floats, for many a rood and more, 
Isle after isle, from Carribean shore : 
The sun-burn'd seaman, leaning o'er the prow, 35o 
Admires their course, and wonders how they grow : 
Not less continuous than these sons of ocean 
The sisters glide, and with as tranquil motion ; 
We, in their midst, conspicuous o'er them all, 
A bigger isle, where little sea-crabs crawl. 355 

But come, enliv'ning orchestra of Jove ! 
Whose viols screak below, though tun'd above : 



Ver. 341. — double Ajax' art,"] Read, meo penculo, "twice Ulysses' 
art" ; for so the hero must certainly have meant to say ; and the inten- 
tion, everybody knows, is every thing. * * 

343. — girls — ] The amenity of Rubeta's disposition is particu- 
larly well seen in the affectionate familiarity of this appellation. * * 

355. j9 bigger isle, where little sea-crabs crawl.] It is one of the idle 
amusements of that idlest time, a sequence of days of fine weather in 
the tropics, to fish up the large bunches of the weed which covers the 
ocean on either side of the vessel, and pick oflT the little crabs which 
make it their travelling yacht, and this for the pleasure of leaving the 
poor things to dry up in the hot sun upon the rail ; for idleness often 
makes men absurdly cruel. * * 



CANTO SECOND. ^ 99 

Bright maids of honor to queen Phcebe, who 

Can speak so well of maidenhood as you ? 

For ye are virgins all (though somewhat old) : 360 

Sing, Muses, to my peers, the venture bold 

Run by these loins, w^hat time on dusty shelves 

I grop'd for maids as wither'd as yourselves. 

Leave bagpipe, hautboy, fiddle, flute, and tabor. 

Or sound them hard, to aid me now in labor. 365 

In the large room, where, toiling for their bread. 
The busy spinners ply the circling thread. 
Built from the wall a smaller chamber stands. 
Here lightly Time hath laid his sacred hands : 

Ver. 358. — queen Phcebe — ] King Ph(ebus, unquestionably : and if 
anybody objects to a king's having maids of honor, he is to suppose it to 
be a pleasantry of Rubeta's. (See our part of note to v. 363 ) It is true, 
however, that the reading in the text is maintained by a very accom- 
plished critic, who urges in its defence, that as Phcebe borrows her 
brother's light, so on state-occasions it is probable she may apply for 
the Muses to swell her train, and therefore they are properly called 
her maids of honor. At all events, (he well adds,) Rubeta cannot 
be wrong. * "^ 

361, 362. — the verdure bold — Run by these loins — ] See note to 
V. 372, 373. By Run by these loins, some suppose the hero to have 
meant to allude to the danger incurred by those parts in particular as 
sung in v. 450 - 458. * * 

363. — as withered as yourselves.] Gross ignorance. The celestials 
enjoy eternal youth. For what other cause is Hebe made their cup- 
bearer? Cerdanus. 

The phrase is merely figurative ; the " Captain of the Veils " meaning 
to denote the length of time they had already existed, not to reproach 
them with its ravages. Heyne. 

Hetne is wrong: but La Cerda is not right. The Captain is merely 
jesting : humor, it is not to be forgotten, is a marked feature in his men- 
tal physiognomy, as he himself has given us to understand, and tells us 
directly in v. 388 - 390, below. * * 



100 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

For the deal planks no swart defacement bear. 37o 
Nor the gray worm has dar'd to burrow there. 
Fast was the door ; the key might not be found ; 
No window gap'd ; but, far above the ground, 
Mysteriously dark, a large square hole 
Frown'd into awe your brother's boding soul. 375 

Alas ! (I thought), the place where, living, fresh, 
Poor nuns are purg'd, for sins done in the flesh : 
And Ah! — I cry 'd,— dark nymphs, what have ye here ? 
See in Monk's book, where, mark'd by this dog's-ear. 
The very spot ! Now, by my hopes of glory, 380 
I '11 mount yon stool, and scale your purgatory ! 

What ! — said Serin, — such doubts upon us cast ? 
Sisters, this saint is but a man at last ! 
A man ? Ah no ! those eyes repel the charge ; 
Soft as a cowl's, though nothing near so large ! 385 
And yet, methinks a little twinkler there 
Warns us of malice, by his merry glare. 

That 's wit, my dear ; the ray of humor fine. 
That makes me known and needed where I dine, — 



Ver. 372-375. — the key might not be found; — JVo ivindow gap^d; 
etc.] See in the Visit the account of the " square hole " " high up 
from the floor," which the glorious hero mistook for " the ' purgatory ' 
as laid down in Maria Monk's book," and which he "had been diligently 
looking for." They would not give him the keys of the place. Where- 
upon the enthusiastic soldier, with an intrepidity worthy of more success, 
scaled the fortress. " Taking a chair," says the modern Don Quixote, 
«I thereupon climbed up to the dark hole, and thrusting my head 
through, e<c." * * 



CANTO SECOND. 101 

The merry hoy! that dear buffoon, Rubeta! 390 

And by some other names of love still sweeter : 
No malice, no ! believe me ; for I am, 
Though lionlike, as meek as any lamb. 
Yet must I mount ! there 's peril in yon wall ; 
And when on me in vain did Peril call ? 395 

Once, I had sworn to hunt to death a flea. 
Six hours I cours'd him, over thigh and knee ; 
Till, brought to bay, felPd by a mighty thwack. 
The monster paid with life my plunder'd back. 
Judge by this feat what resolution lies 400 

Here, in this heart, despite my tender eyes ! 

This said, I drew the perforated stool 
Close to the wall, plumb underneath the hole. 
But, as thereon I set one nervous foot, 
BoiTEUSE limp'd up, and pluck'd me by the coat, 405 



Ver. 405, 406. BoiTEUSE limp'd up and plucked me by the coat, — Jlnd 
sobbed, and said: O too courageous saint!] So Andromache en- 
deavors to deter Hector : 

"Ev T apa, 01 (pZ X^'i^i i'^oi r '((peer, Ix, t' ovo/na^i * 
Aai/jtovii, <pdi(TU ffi TO ah fjcivoi. • 

11. vi. 405-407. 
But as the peril which Rubeta is about to encounter was far greater 
than that which menaced Hector, and the occasion thereof much more 
important, so does the gentle Boiteuse far surpass the daughter of 
Eetion in the argument, equally unsuccessful, with which she endeavors 
to move that chieftain : for the latter lady detains her lord to listen to 
an account of her family, which must have been familiar enough to him 
already ; the former tells a story which Rubeta could not previously 
know: Andromache urges Hector to spare himself for her sake, 



102 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

And sobb'd, and said : O too courageous saint ! 

Climb not yon wall, unless you'd have me faint. 

Think what awaits you, if your hold should fail ; 

Bruis'd, haply lam'd, with me to tell the tale ! 

Me ? Poor Boiteuse ! 'T was on Christ's holy fete, 

Some years by-gone : I know not well the date : 4ii 

But I was little then ; and sound, and gay. 

My mother put a currant-pie away, 

In a close room, with window like yon square. 

And begg'd her darling not to venture there. 4i5 

Unhappy I, that did not mind her pray'r ! 

That hour which drew the dame to solemn mass 

Saw Boiteuse to the fatal chamber pass. 

She mounts a chair ; the window was not high ; 

Close to the sill repos'd the tempting pie ; 420 

A small round hole, by old establish'd use. 

Smiling midway the crust, replete with juice. 

Just as, with head askance, heart throbbing quicker, 

I thrust one finger in, to taste the liquor, 

The false chair slid, my hand forsook the tart, 425 

And Boiteuse lay deform'd past reach of art. 

which was undoubtedly very selfish ; Boiteuse entreats her Captain 
for his own, and thereunto applies a sort of argumenium ad hominem^ 
which must have had great effect, had not Glory blown her bugle in his 
ears, and chivalrous daring fortified his heart against the assaults of 
Prudence. Ah! had but Andromache been Boiteuse, Hector per- 
haps were still alive, and Troy, Trot would have stood despite the 
gods and mythologic Bryant. * * 



CANTO SECOND. 103 

Be warn'd in time : O sir, 't will never do 
To have but two good legs between us two ! 

You preach in vain, I said : No mournful tale 
Shall make this heart of seven-fold calfskin quail. 43o 
But speak, my deeds ! — Unhand me, maids ! I '11 on, 
Nor further waste discourse : the days are gone. 
When heroes ere they battled play'd bow-wow : 
No bard of seven cities fiddles now. 

With pride I spoke : and Pride 's forbid to shine, 435 
Though that her perch were higher crest than mine. 
Heedless, kind Boiteuse, of thy warning fall, 
Blind to my fate, I clomb the wooden wall. 
Ah, Father Richards ! hadst thou thither come, 
Perch'd on Serin's or Leucorrhea's thumb, 44o 
Thy wing fatidical had brush'd our brow. 
And a new omen sav'd me whole as now ! 



Ver. 429, 430. You preach in vain, 1 said: no mournful tale — Shall 
make, etc.] How does this agree with what he has said of himself in 
V. 392, 393, as well as in other places ? Well enough. His habitual 
bearing is mild, his temper on ordinary occasions meek as any Iambus; 
but, when resolution is required, then the heroic chief shakes off these 
gentler virtues "like dew-drops from a lion's mane," and is indeed, as 
he himself says, " lionlike." * * 

431, 432. — / HI on, — JVor further waste discourse — ] Here the 
superiority of our hero to the bulwark of Troy is very evident. Hec- 
tor talks some five-and-twenty lines in reply to Andromache, and 
shows himself a tender husband as a doughty hero : but Rubeta, more 
impatient for action, cuts short all topics with a Hotspur-energy, and 
subdues the softness of his gentler spirit to show himself the thorough 
hero. * * 



104 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

My hands were in the gap, my right foot prest 

Prone on the open cover of the chest, 

When, as I gather'd force, with breath constrain'd, 445 

And deem'd my glorious purpose almost gain'd, 

As proudly scann'd my eye the slippery way, 

A wanton novice drew the stool away. 

Ah, noble peers ! dear brother- worms of wit ! 

The rest how shall I speak in accents fit ! 45o 

As struggling to ascend, afraid to fall, 

I hung, 'twixt earth and heav'n, and kick'd the wall, 

My rebel braces (not like these I wear ; 

But darn'd and splic'd, a venerable pair !) 

Gave way : O God ! the ravelPd ends escape, 455 

And lo ! reveaPd to light, my nether shape ! 

So look'd old Troy, when fell her ramparts down, 

And bar'd to Grecian eyes the unseemly town. 



Ver. 444. — the open cover of the chest,'\ This phrase helps us to ex- 
plain an expression in v. 402; "the perforated stool." The prop in 
question was of the order of stools known as close ; its present position, 
" open," with the lid leaning upright against the wall. * * 

455. — ravelVd — ] In the sense in which Shakspeare uses it in 
this line: " Sleep which knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care." And it 
is so employed throughout the volume. * * 

457, 468. So looked old Tsor, when fell her ramparts down^ — And bar^d 
to Grecian eyes the unseemly toivn.] 

Si licet exemplis in parvo grandibus uti, 
HcBc fades Trojce^ cum caperetur, erat. 

Ovid. Trist. i. Eleg. iii. 

Commentators are not agreed from what sources the learned hero 
derives this knowledge of the domestic condition of the capital of Priam; 
though some pretend to say it is merely an allusion ; to what ? in the 



CANTO SECOND. 105 

Then, shame-struck, blushing, loudly did I cry : — 
Run, holy maids ! Don't peep ; or I shall die ! 46o 

As the dry leaves in eddies circle round, 
When winds autumnal sweep the wooded ground ; 
As rushes up the flue the smother fast. 
When on the fire the recent faggot 's cast : 
As spring the quails on whirring pinion slant, 465 

When the keen setter snuffs their cover'd haunt ; 



name of Civility be it asked. To Saturday-night, says my Uncle 
Toby. But whether the critic consider Toby's ready answer " a plain 
subterfuge " or not, 't is certain that the Poet would be greatly in- 
censed did he know of this uncivil attempt to soil the honor of his 
hero. 

We have just lighted on an old Scholiast who asks, if the town 
might not be considered as unseemly, simply for being denuded of its 
outward defences, and these lying a confused heap at its heels as it 
were. An excellent gloss, which clears up the difficulty and makes the 
affair clean at once. * * 

459, 460. Then, shame-struck, blushing, loudly did I cry : — Run, holy 
maids ! DonH peep ; or I shall die ! ] The modesty of the Brace- 
betrayed is only equalled by that of the husband of Penelope, who, 
when the handmaids of Nausicaa wait to see him bathe, sings out 
lustily to them : Get out of the way, girls ; — it isn't decent ; I positively 
wont strip before such nice young women ; premising, by way I suppose 
of consoling them for the deprivation, the fact, that it was a long time 
since he ^d had a good cleaning : 

' A f£ <p i ^ X t, (f Tvi 6' ovrea aTTo'TT^oStv, o<p^ iyea avrog 
"Ax^jjv ufjLouv a-xoXovffofiai, ecfi,^) o* IXaia) 

^gKrffo(jt,oi.i ' n y a, ^ ^>j^ov u, -^r o x, Z " ° ^ I er r i v a X a i (p '/}. 
"A. V r n V V h X, a v 'i y u y i Xoiffffofjcai' a.1^ i o [a a, t y a, ^ 
ICufAveuffdeii, X, V ^i^ ff IV iu'ffXoKa.fjcoiffi fjt.ZTiX6uv. 

Odyss. vl 218 -222. ** 

461, etc. As the dry leaves, etc.] The first two similes express the 
rapidity, the last two the noise and confusion, of the flight of the 
women from the scene of the hero's exposure. * * 
14 



106 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

As pilfering schoolboys from an orchard fly, 

When o'er the hedge grim lowers the owner's eye : 

So hurriedly, all mingled in their fright. 

Nuns, novices, and spinners, urge the flight. 470 

With various clamor ; scream, and laugh, and shriek. 

Here push the strong, and there recede the weak. 

My face was to the wall, I could not see ; 

But such the scene my ears described to me. 

And more, a novice thus expressed her thought : — 475 

The nasty beast ! to wear a shirt so short ! 

Then all was still. Wo 's me ! I could not rise. 
I durst not drop : the fall had broke my thighs. 
Chill blows the air. I curse my painful weight ; 
Then praise the Lord, and moralize my state : — 480 



Ver. 475. — a novice thus expressed her thought •] It is asked, how, if 
his face was to the wall, he could know that the speaker was a novice ? 
It is answered, that he probably recognised the voice. Batle says, 
RuBETA supposed it was such a thought as only a novice would ex- 
press. * * 

479, 480. Chill bloivs the air ; I curse my painful weight, — Then praise 
the Lord, and moralize my state :] How truly philosophical must be 
the character Avhich can moralize in such a predicament ! the cold air 
blowing with peculiar severity upon his naked part, from the shortness 
of the curtain noticed by the observing novice, and his heavy weight 
bearing incessantly upon his wrists and arms. There is indeed a 
commentator, who declares that no state could be so favorable to phi- 
losophical reflection as that of Rdbeta ; for men are never so well dis- 
posed to think seriously as after a cold air-bath ; and that pain and 
shame are excellent promoters of the same agreeable disposition. The 
learned Gymnosophos may be right ; but we insist upon it, that no man 
but our hero could cool himself to so much purpose. Besides, look at 
his piety. His first feeling is to curse his ponderosity ; but, instantly 
correcting himself, he praises Heaven. If it would not be thought 



CANTO SECOND. 107 

Now well I see man never may be blest 
With perfect fortune, or unbroken rest ! 
What though the Sun unclouded shine to-day, 
To-morrow storms shall gather round his way : 
For I, whose planet promis'd fame and riches, 485 
Now see all slipp'd with these confounded breeches. 
Ah, happy, had I worn my hose more small ! 
Still happier, had I worn no hose at all, 
Whelp'd on those hills where gallant men their thighs 
Conceal in philabegs from maidens' eyes, 490 

Or, suckled with the she-wolf's bloody young. 
Wore rags with Pindar while a Horace sung, 

profane in us, we could almost fancy the very words with which this 
great and good man would solace his affliction as he looked down upon 
his fallen integuments : The Lord gave, and the Lord taketh away : 
blessed be the name of the Lord ! [See latter part of note to v. 553.) 

481, 482. JVow well I see man never may be blest — With perfect fortune, 
etc.] Pindar has nearly the same reflection with Rubeta : 

To a- 
i) ^et^Uf^i^ov iffkov, 

ri ii^orZ. Ohjmp. i. 159. Heyne: Lond. 1823. 
And in Ode ii. of the same, v. 55, 

* # *!= 

'OyroTi, TxTo 'Axiou, 
'Ati/^s? irhv aya^M 
Tikfurda-OfZiv. 

A sentiment so very singular it is not likely could originate with two 
great men; and Pindar has the priority. ** 

492. Wore rags with PufDAs while a Horacb sung,] Read unhesi- 
tatingly : 

"Wore rags with C^sar, where a Virgil sung." 

We need scarcely add, that by wearing rags the erudite Rubeta 



108 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Or, like my Adam, of whose vocal flow^'rs 

I lectur'd to the fair in happier hours, 

Stalk'cl undegraded by a tailor's shears, 495 

And grac'd the figleaf which Apollo wears, 

In days when men had tails, and joy'd to browse, 

And show'd their navels even to their cows. 

This ill for thee I bear, ador'd Renown ! 

This, this, proclaims me, sun-ey'd Gold, thy own ! 500 

Others, thus plac'd, another cause might plead. 

And boast the love of truth. Of truth, indeed ! 

For me, sufficient men shall read my name : 

I 'd murder Truth at any time for fame. 



means to express the cloths ^vith which his favorite unbreeched Romans 
swathed their thighs and legs; at least the effeminate of them, and the 
valetudinary ; for Horace classes these fascicB among the insignia 
morhif and Cicero mentions them along with medicamenia. ** 

493, 494. — Adam, of whose vocal floiv'rs — / lectured to the fair in 
happier hours,] Those who had the happiness of attending the Lec- 
tures of the great Captain before the "Mercantile Library Association" 
of New York, in the winter of 1837, will remember with particular pleas- 
ure with what eloquence and feeling he told how Adam talked to Eve 
by means of bachelors'-buttons and ladyslippers. * * 

496. — the figleaf which Jpollo wears,'\ Here the various Rubeta 
gives us the first inkling of that eminent knowledge of sculpture for 
which he is so justly celebrated in the 4th Canto. * * 

504, 606. 1 'rf murder Truth at any time for fame ; — [Witness, ye columns 
of my nightly press !) ] See the examples cited in illustration of the 
246th verse of Canto iii., and which we in this place refer to, not as 
particular instances of Rubeta's readiness to do any dirty job for the 
sake of notoriety, (for such, we should give the general reference, "See 
his journal pa55im," ) but of his utter disregard of the divinity of truth, 
arising from a laxity of moral principle, (of which we have given a 
striking evidence in the 4th Canto, and shall one bay present 
ANOTHER STILL MORE CONVINCING, to perhaps the astonislmient of 



CANTO SECOND. 109 

(Witness, ye columns of my nightly press !) 505 

More who would do for Fame ? Who could do less ? 
Truth is no real good. Can truth be eat ? 
Feels it or warm or cold, or dry or wet ? 
Ideal virtue then : just none, or worse. 
But fame, which glads my heart, the well-stock'd 
purse, ^^^ 

Which finds me bellytimber, these are goods ; 
And, who for these brooks Fortune's sullen moods, 
As much a martyr, as who, free from sin. 
Roasts like a woodcock with his entrails in. 
What makes the martyr ? Surely not the pain. 5i5 
Rouse up, my soul ! nor be thou great in vain. 

many,) arising, we say, from a laxity of moral principle, and that med- 
dling-, gossiping disposition, which is a peculiar characteristic of this 
"lively dunce." 

Which the Colonel may translate, if he please, by referring to his Bible : 

Exodus, xxiii. 1. 

516. Rouse up, my soul ! etc.] Admirable! Here, indeed, we have 
the true spirit of this most extraordinary man. Following up his argu- 
ments, that, in suffering suspension in a state of demi-nudity, he is 
truly a martyr to the cause of honor, he says, it is not the pain endured 
which makes the martyr, but (as he shows below) the cause for which ; 
the idea of pain reminds him of his arms and wrists, and feeling proba- 
bly that his courage was sinking at this recollection of his sufferings, 
he calls upon his spirit to rouse herself, and show in act the greatness 
which she owned ; for pain, he adds, is nothing to the wise, etc. etc. 
Would that our commendation might be unqualified ! but we are obliged 
to declare to the reader our solemn opinion that this whole passage, 
commencing at v. 503 (and including of course the preceding note) is an 

* Find. Olymp.i. 84. ** 



110 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Shall the wise spirit falter ? Stripp'd as I, 
And plac'd, unshelter'd, 'neath a winter's skj, 
Astride upon an icicle's sharp cone, 
The sage, with brow erect, untaught to groan, 520 
Would crj : " Delightful seat ! The Virgin warms ! 
What melting transport in her genial arms ! " 
Fools, cowards, suffer pain ; the wise and brave 
Smile at the wreck, and float on fortune's wave. 

interpolation ! ! for the opinions here forced into the mouth of Rubeta 
are the very doctrines of the Epicureans, a sect to which we never 
can believe so intellectual and transcendental a spirit could belong, * * 

517, 518. — Stripped as I, — ^nd placed, etc.] Kav o-T^iSku^ip V i ffoipos, 
tJvai avTov tu^itt/xova. Dogma Epicuri ap. Laert. juxta ed. Casaub. 1615. 

" Affirmat [EpicurusJ quodam loco : Si uratur sapiens, si crucieiur ; — 
expectas fortasse dum dicat, Patietur, perferet, non succumhet : magna 
mehercule laus, et eo ipso per quem juravi Hercule digna: sed Epicuro, 
homini aspero et duro, non est hoc satis ; — In Phalaridis tauro si erif, 
dicet, ^ Quam suave est hoc ! quam hoc non euro!'''''* Cic. Tusc. Disp. 
lib. ii. 7. 

Every system of philosophy has a tendency to run into extremes, and 
to get abstracted beyond common sense : and the school of Epicurus 
but shares the fate of other sects in affording somewhere matter of 
mirth and ridicule to its antagonists. 

Of Rubeta we may add, that it is not pretended to put into his 
mouth, even for the purpose of mockery, the dogmas of any particular 
philosophy ; for it is the peculiar happiness of such persons to combine 
in their essence the absurdities of every system without having perhaps 
so much as heard the names of any one of them. 

If we had any doubts before about the adulteration of the text, they are put to rest 
by the above comment, which, Hke the verses it refers to, we consider nothing of the 
Author's. * * 

521. The Virgin warms!] That is : It is now the month of August. 

# # 

623, 524. Fools, coivards, suffer pain ; the wise and brave — Smile at 
the wreck, and Jloat on fortune^s wave.] — To thev Urt rou aytthZ pkuv 

fit* Kcti afffeil^iffSai ra, a'u//,^aivavTa, ku) ffuyKXudofjLiva ahru. M. AnTONINI, 

De rebus ad se pertinent, iii. 16. ed. Gat. 4to. Lond. 1697. 

Here Rubeta is himself again, and we may accordingly consider 



CANTO SECOND. Ill 

Let Hercules go whine ; Rubeta's tears 525 

Flow but for women ; and his heels spurn fears. 
Mind, mind, keeps warm the shivering case of dirt. 
Lord of itself, despite too scant a shirt ! 
Yet, (for the flesh is weak,) methinks I tire. 
And fain would spare this cost of inward fire : — 530 
O thou ! whose charms the limping son of Jove 
Caught, naked as this rump, in chains he wove, 



the text from this place genuine, although it is true, that the heroic 
sentiments it delivers belong as much to Epicurus as to the Stoics, 
if we except the single line about fortune, which the sage of Epicu- 
rus is made to resist {tixy} « ^vr/rais^^a/.) See Diogenes Laertius in 
the Life of this philosopher ; especially that fine passage of the Letter 
of Epicurus to Men(eceus, which marks the difference of his doctrine 
from the Cyrenaics' and refutes the calumny of his enemies : "Orav »S» 

Xsya^sv i^ovh riXeg ii-^a^x^Tv, ov rug ruv kaurm ri^ovas^ k. t. X. p. 791, edit. 

Causaboni. Genev. 1615. ** 

525. Let Hercules go whine — ] " Sed videamus Herculem ipsum, 
qui tum dolore frangebatur, quum immortal itatem ipsa morte qusrebat. 
Quas hie voces apud Sophoclem in Trachiniis edit ! " Tusc. Disp. ii. 8. 
Rubeta's intimacy with Cicero is matter of notoriety. And we 
confess that this fact, taken with the passage we are now upon, throws 
us back into our doubts whether the text may not be pure after all. 
Let us say that the inconsistencies it betrays mark the struggles of a 
great mind wrestling with pain, and obliged at the end to yield. "Ego 
tantam vim non tribuo sapienti contra dolorem." Then elegantly adds 
the author just cited : " Sit fortis in perferendo : satis est : ut Isetetur 
etiam, non postulo." [Tusc. Disp. 7.) ** 

525, 526. — Rubeta's tears — Flow hut for ivomen — ] A glorious im- 
provement this, (the reservation of the wise man's tenderness for 
women,) upon the exemption from grief of the Epicurean. * * 

526. — and his heels spurn fears : ] Though in danger and suspense 
RuBETA still regards himself as the Convent's champion under the em- 
blematical figure presented to the abbess in her dream. Such is his 
just sense of the dignity of this visionary transformation, that he is 
known to speak in that exalted character even in ordinary matters : 



112 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

When tittering Pallas from the chamber run, 

And Juno bhish'd to see herself outdone ; 

Whose Medicean form enchants my eye 535 

In ev'ry petticoat which wriggles by ; 

Whose altars blaze in each nice thing I 've writ, 

Stain'd by no passing touch of sense or wit ; 

Goddess ! if I thy colors long have worn. 

And serv'd thy cause by printing Dr. Home, 540 

(Though others, as Petronius, 't is true 

Have (not my fault) much more that way to do,) 

O send some vot'ry of thy genial pow'r. 

Whose hand may give me ease in this dark hour ! 

Assist me, if my beauties bear inspection ; 545 

For, should I drop, they 'd take a new complexion ! 



witness the following citation from his journal hy a correspondent of 
the N. Y. American's : 

"'As to that vile combination of words/ (is being purchased,) 'we sp\xrn it with 
our heels.' [Memorable quotations from the Commercial.] " 

The beauty of this original metaphor, has, we think, no rival. * * 
633. — tittering Pallas from the chamber run,] The learned hero 

differs here from Homer, who tells us expressly the goddesses were 

not there : 

" But modesty withheld the goddess-train." (Pope.) 

Supposing that the infallible Rub eta has good authority for what he 
says, we may remark that he appears to be drawing, though with his 
usual modesty, a parallel between his own naked charms and those of 
Venus.* Minerva runs from the chamber like one of his novices. 

* Why not of Mars ? Corrector. 



CANTO SECOND. 113 

The goddess heard. The sound of coming feet 
Thrills on my ear ; my pulses quicker beat ; 
And PuTAiN lo ! (I look'd at her askew :) 
First on each lily hand a glove she drew, 550 

Then, moving backward, spread her modest arms, 
And coupled with her own my naked charms. 
So when the patriarch, at noon of day, 
Stretch'd in his tent, fatigued, unconscious lay, 
The pious brothers, with averted head, 555 

Soft o'er his limbs their mother's nightgown spread. 

But PuTAiN, ah ! she sinks beneath my weight ! 
Borne on her back, I more than share her fate : 



Ver. 553. So when the patriarch, etc.] We may note the exactitude 
of the learned and pious Rubeta in this simile. The word ishecher, 
which is translated in our Bibles drv/nken, does not indeed imply so 
high a state of intoxication, but means what we vulgarly call fuddled, 
or, as the Rev. Mr. Herries has it, a little disguised in liquor. The 
reverent delicacy with which Rubeta renders it fatigued is quite 
characteristic of the hero. The source from which he has been 
enabled to derive the precise nature of the garment which Shem and 
Japheth threw over their centenarian sire, is, like that of many other 
points of Rubeta's vast knowledge, totally unknown to us. 

We may observe, that this great hero, and " evangelical Christian," 
is remarkably fond of citing from the sacred Scriptures, even on occa- 
sions of pleasantry. This practice, which were justly censured as 
profaneness in you or me, is only piety in such a man : 

For saints may do the same things by 
The spirit, in sincerity, 
Which other men are tempted to, 
And at the devil's instance do ; 
And yet the actions be contrary. 
Just as the saints and wicked vary. 

Hudib. Pt. ii. Canto ii. 235 - 240. * * 
15 



114 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

As our limbs justle, tangled in the fright, 

God ! her elbow smote my orb of sight ! seo 
Then flash'd the living lightning from the w^ound ; 
My senses swim ; the chamber floats around ; 

1 grope, and strive to rise, but sink upon the ground, 

'T was then, call'd in by my terrific roar, 
(For never bull of Bashan bellow'd more !) 565 

The brides of Heav'n and spinners round me pour. 
One shrieks for vinegar ; another cries, — 
The laud'num, quick ! — God bless me ! both his 

eyes! 
And questions follow close : — How came he hurt ? 
And lo ! our sister's habit, gray with dirt ! 570 

And words of pity : then thy voice, Fretille ; — 
St. Agnes ! look ; the saint 's unbutton'd still ! 
This stirr'd my liver. Painfully I rose. 
My shirt had once more knitted, with my hose, 

Ver. 668. — God bless me ! both his eyes !] Batle, in his account of 
RuBETA, takes this as a serious assertion, and asks, how Putain's elbow- 
could manage to bruise both eyes at once. He did not see that it 
was a natural effect of the nun's alarm, when she beheld the hero 
spread upon the floor with both' his eyes shut (a voluntary exclusion 
of light which we imagine is implied in line 563, " I grope " ; though 
indeed this expression may merely mean, that he was in the dark from 
the immediate consequence of the blow, namely, the quantity of water 
which was pouring from the offended organ, as he says, below (v. 584), 
the fountains of his eye.) * * 

673. This stirr''d my liver, etc.] According to philosophers, the liver 
is the seat of the animal passions. Hence the observation of Fretille 
more particularly affects the hero, from the interest her beauty and 
amiability had excited in that organ of his greatest susceptibility. 

Servius. 

J\rug(B ScrviancB. ** 



CANTO SECOND. 115 

Their ancient league of mutual protection ; 575 

The braces dangled still in false bisection ; 
Hing'd by the waistband-buttons, downwards swung 
Their parallel sides, and to each kneepan hung. 
Thus gap'd an interstice, 'twixt hose and vest, 
Where my loose under-garment swelPd confest. 580 
In vain the modest broadcloth up I drew ; 
Each moment gave more shirt-tail to the view. 
I rose, and, blushing like an orient sky, 
Op'd to the light the fountains of my eye. 
Now the kind nymphs their vinegar apply. 585 

And O ! (I urg'd,) whose starry orbs, I own. 
Shine with more light than ever mine yet shone. 
Thy hussif bring, and let the steel reknit 
These pendent rags. What honor, to refit 
That fork'd concern, of cloth and tailor's stitches, 590 
Maids never mention, but which men call breeches ! 
I said. 'T is done. Two spinners gently guide 
The ravell'd netting o'er my shoulders wide. 

Ver. 578. — to each kneepan hung.] Mad. Dacier here enters into 
a long disquisition as to the length of the braces, which, she remarks, 
must either have been monstrous, or else the hero must have had very 
short thighs ; and that in either case he probably wore his indispensa- 
bles very loose ; and so on, and so on : all of which she might have 
gathered from the context ; for example, v. 487. Eustathius and 
others, on the contrary, derive a different conclusion from the same pas- 
sage ; which they would have to demonstrate the prodigious size of our 
hero, as Polyphemus' walking-stick was an indication of the Cyclops' 
dimensions. • It is pleasing to note the dreams into which commenta- 
tors fall. * * 

586, 587. And O ! — whose starry orbs, etc.] Fretille. See v. 281. 



116 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

This seiz'd Fretille ; and soon her agile hand 
Repair'd the breach, and button'd down the band : 595 
Not without cost ; for, while she shook all o'er 
From some dark cause I cannot now explore, 
Three times her needle pierc'd my tender flesh, 
Three times drew blood, and made me roar afresh. 

Mov'd were the sisters' gentle hearts the while. 600 
But soon I reassur'd them, with a smile 
Sweet as the bow which, on a summer's even, 
Spans the dark storm receding from the Heaven^ 
Then said : — Think not this mighty spirit quail'd, 
Illustrious crew, that one attempt has fail'd. 605 

When pause the bold, 't is but a brief delay. 
A passing cart may stop a hero's way. 
Mine is still on ! though stools and steel appall, 
And elbow^s back the hazard of a wall. 
Rubeta's soul, uncheck'd by fear or doubt, 6io 

Would still aspire, though both his eyes were out. 



Ver. 610 - 612. Rubeta's soul, unchecked hy fear or doubt, — Would still 
aspire, though both his eyes ivere out. — Then should the, Muse, etc.] The 
indomitable spirit of Rubeta's character is well evinced in this passage. 
Though his courage should cost him the total deprivation of sight, still 
he should be great : though no more to be a hero, he might flourish as 
a poet, and the Muse would gain in him what Valor should lose. 
Believing this most devoutly, we could almost in our patriotism forget 
humanity, and pray that, for the honor of America, such might indeed 
be the consummation of his glory. Anon. 

The reader, when he comes to the immortal lines of Rubeta's com- 
position which are quoted in the next Canto, will share this enthusiasm 
of the anonymous commentator. * * 



CANTO SECOND. 117 

Then should the Muse by Valor's losses gain, 

And a new Milton, or a Homer reign. 

All men appear the same, while times are fair ; 

'T is but misfortune shows them as they are. 6i5 

So, in dry weather, cover'd o'er with dust. 

The street's round stones display one common crust : 

But let long rains, or sudden showers, pour down. 

Through the hoarse kennel floats their mask of 

brown ; 
The shining pebbles show their native hue ; G20 

Gray checkers black, and stammel vies with blue. 
Where the fixt soul is of decided stamp, 
'T will brighten, touch it with affliction's damp : 
As, in your calico, the colors set 
Show most distinctly, when the print is wet. 625 

I said. Then they : — O hero nobly try'd ! 
Erect thy stem, thou flower of manhood's pride : 
No show'r-wash'd pebble, (by God's holy light !) 
Nor wetted gingham ever shone so bright ! 
What though one eye is dim, thy shirt-tail seen, 630 
Scanty indeed, and not exceeding clean, 
The salve of time shall plaster up the hurt. 
And virgin purity forget the shirt ! 

This as they spoke, the nuns' soft hands infuse 
The acid drops, and dab the throbbing bruise. 535 
Flows no more now the rheum ; abates the smart : 
Then, for the gods admire the firm of heart, 



118 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Iris, unseen, descended from on high, 

And clapp'd her rainbow on the swollen eye. 

O, 't was a sight to see, how look'd the train, 640 
When rous'd jour chief and shook his warlike mane, 
And paw'd the ground, terrific as before, 
Free of the past, prepared to brave still more ! 
Forward! — he crj'd in thunder, — To the traps! 
March, Curtain-tails ! To glory, Sable caps ! 645 
Six nuns methought would die of joy outright ; 
And the rest laugh'd, ecstatic with delight : — 

No more shall saints their prodigies display ; 
Theirs yield to thine, as stars before the day, 
Or crape to lace. Pluck Satan by the nose ? 650 
St. Dunstan's tongs were nothing to thy hose ! 

This when they 'd spoke, again their windpipes 
rang ; 
Till the monk-spiders sway'd before the clang. 

Their joy indulg'd, unwonted in those halls, 
I lead the army to the under walls. 655 

Here as I march'd, with all-observing eye, 
In a dark corner Heaven bade me spy 

Ver. 650, 661. — Pluck Satan by the nose ? — St. Dunstan's tongs were 
nothing to thy hose /] The saint who filled the see of Canterbury in the 
tenth century was not so gallant, it would seem, as our own saint and 
hero ; for once upon a time, when Beelzebub took upon himself the 
likeness of a fayre ladye to tempt the archbishop, his grace made red- 
hot a pair of tongs, and seized his wicked Eminence so warmly by 
the nose, that the dogs of Hell were conscious of roast meat for a 
fortnight. * * 



CANTO SECOND. 119 

Six mighty jars, all cover'd, and all gray, 

Plac'd side by side, their lodge the cellar-way. 

As when a boy at taw, in some low street, 660 

Lights on a button shining at his feet, 

Thinking it sixpence, over it he stands. 

And shouts, while spreading out his eager hands, 

No halves^ nor quarters ; nothing yours, but mine ! 

So, laying on the jars this fist divine, 665 

The other paw extended, fierce I cry, 

(As if my fellow-gazetteers were by,) — 

Avaunt ! ye half-starv'd brothers of the press, 

Greedy, as crows, of any chance-distress ! 

Let flood, and fire, and rape, your gizzards fill, 670 

Nor think to pounce upon the prey I kill : 

This quarry 's mine ! my courage struck it down, 

To scrape me many a bit about the town. 

So when the griffard, bird of Afric vast. 
On the soak'd sand his dying victim cast, 675 



Ver. 653, 659. Six mighty jars — their lodge the cellar-way.'] 

" I have already remarked, that the cellars in general were used for store-rooms. 
In one of them," etc., " I found a number of large stone jugs." Visit^ etc. 

673. — bit — ] Not, as Johnson defines it, a coin worth about 7^ d. 
sterling, (as in New Orleans,) but its younger brother, known by that 
name in Philadelphia, and representative of the exact value of a 
newspaper. * * 

674. — griffard — ] Falco armiger — Falco hellicus : Griffard — 
Warlike Eagle : a bird of great strength and courage. 

Just above we have seen Rubeta a paver, and a haberdasher, or 
laundry-maid : here we have him figuring as an ornithologist. Wonder- 
ful, versatile being ! * * 



120 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Prepares to gorge, the vultures, sordid troop ! 
Fierce to the spoil their coward pinions slope : 
He, standing on the quivering antelope. 
With blazing eye, and talons steep'd in blood, 
Majestic, overawes the vulgar brood. 680 

I raise the plug, and, bending o'er the jar : — 
What odor strikes my senses ? Is it tar ? 
Salve ; pennyroyal ; sars'parilla ; thyme ? 
How speaks the guide ? Sulphuric acid ; lime, 
Maria's carboys ! Up, thou mighty rod, 685 

And sound their bottoms, in the name of God ! 
Bring water, nuns ! if aught lie here, dissolv'd 
'T will float to top, and thus our doubts be solv'd. 
Meantime, to work the pestle be my portion. 
Heav'n shield the bowels of the poor abortion ! 690 



Ver. 683. — Salve ; pennyroyal, etc,] 

" From the odor of the corks, and the scent of the jugs themselves, I presume 
their contents had been syrups, essences, and medicinal decoctions for the sick and 
the apothecary." Visit, etc. 

684. — the guide — ] Monk's book. See v. 252. * * 

685. Mahia's carboys ! — ] 

" Recollecting that Maria had spoken of some vessels, which, from her descrip- 
tion, must have been carboys of sulphuric acid, used, as she intimates, with 
lime, to destroy the remains of the murdered victims, I examined these jugs.^' 
Visit, etc. 

690. Heavn shield the boivels of the poor abortion!] The humanity of 
the hero is very conspicuous in this exclamatory prayer. While about 
to churn with his stick the unfinished lump of creation which he sup- 
posed to be in the carboy, he fears for its intestines. Who but himself 
could have had such forethought in such a moment of enthusiasm ! 

Bp. Newton. 

No one but his prototype. He, when making ready to cut the throat 
of TuRNus, and tear from him his bride, feels similar sentiments of 



CANTO SECOND. 121 

I said, and, with a churning-motion, pound. 
The tottering vase gives back a hollow sound. 
Stop! — cry'd Fretille, amaz'd my strength to 

view, — 
Stop ! or you '11 surely punch their bottoms through. 
Then came the maid of golden brows, Carotte, 695 
And pour'd in water from a pewter pot. 

compassion for the consequences which must attend his doughty 
resolution : 

Heu ! quantse miseris csedes Laurentibus instant ! 
Ctuas pcenas mihi, Turne, dabis! quam multa, etc. 

Mn. viii. 537. ** 
696. — jiewter pot.-\ The expression is vague, nor defines the par- 
ticular nature of the vessel ; the purpose to which it was devoted. The 
understanding of this matter, which seems to have puzzled commenta- 
tors not a little, rests upon the one question, Had it a handle ? 

TURNEBUS. 

Nihil absurdius. Nam quid si non matula stannea, istius speciei quae 
in valetudinarii sessibulis usitatissima, hie intelligi potest ? Observ. hoc 
nostri hemistichium : 

Scant was the stream^ (v. 699.) 
et vers. seqq. 700, 701. Prseterhsc dicit, versu 703, 

O'er my darrCd—\in ed. Venet. et aliis rfamnW, perperam. Vulgo 
interpretatur darWd in eodem sensu: dial. Ston. pro damn'd: sensus pro 
Rubetae modestia parum decerns — ] stockings rusKd the yellow — 
[pro yellow ed. Rom. hornd ; sed frigide-] stale -[nxin^ vetus, spur- 
cissima, tetro odore.] 

Iterum vers. seqq. 705, 706, habent 

Upfiew the lotium: ["lotion" vulgo et vitiose, ut apparet de vers, 
subs. : Ye gods ! how Utter-salt ! ] 

Itaquesicinterp.: "And pour'd in water from a pewter pot"; Un- 
namque infudit e matula stannea. Interpretationem quam Bracciolmus, 
poeta clarus atque facetus, necnon Guarinus, viri doctissnm ejus nommis 
filius celeberrimique Guarini, auctoris Pastoris Fidi, avus, m ipsorura 
versionibus habent. Hand aliter, vase tenus, Salvinius Dacermsque : 
cseteroqui discrepant. Hetne. 

Neir originale ''peivter pot,'' cio6 orinale di stagno, plena, alio scri- 
vere di alcuni interpreti, d'acqua fatta probabilmente dalla badessa, 
16 



122 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

So, in the tale, bold Morgiana heaves 
The scalding oil upon the potted thieves. 

Scant was the stream. I shook the jar. Then rose 
A pungent scent, whose fragrance seized the nose, 700 
And forc'd me, in alarm, the essence-box to close. 
Ill-judging haste ! Thrown down, (distracting tale !) 
O'er my darn'd stockings rush'd the yellow stale ! 

I stamp'd in rage. Thick-puddled was the place. 
Up flew the lotion, and aspers'd my face : 705 
Ye gods, how bitter-salt ! I could have cry'd ; 

But simply wip'd my brow, and thought, with pride, 

sia, com' altri vogliono, di varie contribuzioni dalle monache. Di 
questa composta sarebbe molto pungente I'odore. Stale vien anche 
nominata in Inglese la birravecchia e morta: ma non si puo credere 
che fosse di questa natura il liquore qui menzionato, ovvero non sarebbe 
stato detto, come nella seguente stanza,* salamoia [brine). Si vedano 

II Gazzetante nel suo Discorso deW Acqua Morta di Verging p. 17, ec. ; 
Guillermo Boho de Piedra, sobre las Sillicos y las Silletas Asquerosas 
que se usan en los Conventos de Canada, — Oct. p. 1835 ; e Die Dumra- 
heit und die Leichtglaubigkeit der mein Herr Wilhelm Esel Kindischgreis, 
Obrist - Possenreisser, Forelle, und dergleichen ; durch die Jungfer 
Loraina Schamlosigkeit, Angel, — Okt. Abtheilung, 1837. 

Traduz. delta Visione di Rubeta da Salvini : Annotaz. p. 31. 

I cannot subscribe either to the interpretation of Heyne, or to the 
proofs he advances. As to the latter ; — it is evident that lotion is the 
proper reading ; not merely that " lotium " is not English, but that it is 
as an emendation unnecessary, and, at any rate, would not be used by so 
modest a speaker as our hero. Lotion, doubtless, as being used to wash 
the vase. The saltness, odor, etc., would arise from the mixture of in- 
gredients. Stale, is old beer, and is used metaphorically in this place 
to express graphically the condition of the water when it flowed from 
the jar. As to the nature of the vessel or utensil itself, it is best to 
leave it to the conjecture of the reader. * * 

705. — lotion — ] Hetne reads lotium, as we have seen in the pre- 
ceding note. * * 

* V. 751, of the text; the translation being in ottava Hma. ** 



CANTO SECOND. 123 

Such short-liv'd show'rs are nothing to the great, 
And briny tears must stain exalted state. 

As when, with musket arm'd, some village blade, 7io 
On battle bent, and treacherous ambuscade, 
'Gainst field-mice bold, fierce wrens, and warlike 

thrushes. 
Sees, as he thinks, a linnet in the bushes, 
With heart a-pit-pat, striding on his toes. 
Form crouch'd, head forw'rd, scarce breathing as he 

715 

goes. 
His left hand props the rusty tube, his right 
Thumbs the cock'd hammer : lo ! he takes his sight, 
Winks, fires : the bird sits motionless in scorn : 
'T is but a brown leaf, sticking on a thorn ! 
Ev'n such my joy, those six gray pots to meet, 720 
Nor less my sorrow at the fond deceit. 

Not so whom Bruno's blundering spite makes 
famous, 
Te Deum squealing, and, (I think,) laudamus. 
They thought, poor innocents, the trial o'er. 
Burns then, — I cry'd, — the vestal's fire no more ? 725 

Ver. 725. Burns then, - 1 cry'd, - the vestal's fire no more ? ] Burman 
interprets this expression very impertinently. Rueeta, he says, asked 
the sisters if they had suddenly lost their maiden virtue ! 

Heinsius agrees with him, but adds, that Rubeta insinuates a face- 
tious allusion, after his fashion, to the extinct fire of the Vestal virgins, 
the prototypes from whom the Romish Church has borrowed, or rather 
inherited in direct descent, and by the rotation and perpetuity of 



124 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Saints ! virgins ! comrades ! where Rubeta trod 
Who still have follow'd, nor once caJPd on God, 
O let not novr those generous bosoms beat 
With less of ardor for this one defeat ! 
Not now^, when Danger croaks her worst alarms, 730 
And the last trial waits to crown our arms. 
O, if for ye unheard of ills I 've borne ; 
Bruis'd ; blinded ; rolPd in dust ; my braces torn ; 
Hung up unbreech'd ; condemn'd to bare unclean 
What, since my nurse, no woman's eyes had seen ; 735 
Rouse up a heart, march cheerly to the traps. 
Nor shame your sleeves, your veils, your tails, your 
caps ! 

national customs (as with almost all its other usances as well as cere- 
monies), its institution of female monasticism. 

Broukhusius, scouting the idea of Rubeta's making any allusion to 
the priestesses of Vesta, because, says he, the hero knew nothing about 
them, explains it into a simple demand whether the Jire, (of courage, 
doubtless,) or the spirit of enterprise, which had animated theijj at their 
first setting out under his conduct, be now extinct; and the learned 
critic concludes with referring in support of his opinion to the verses 
which immediately follow. To his explanation we subscribe as per- 
fectly conclusive, while we reject the argument on which it is predi- 
cated. * * 

727. — nor once calVd on God,] As above, (v. 568.) This animated 
speech of the hero's we should consider an imitation of that of Me- 
NESTHEUs to his rowcrs, did we not know Rubeta's originality, and 
should regard it as original, did we not recollect his erudition. This is 
the passage : the reader shall judge for himself: — 

Nunc, nunc, insurgite remis, 
Hectorei socii, Trojse quos sorte suprema 
Delegi comites ; nunc illas promite vires. 
Nunc animos quibus in Gsetulis syrtibus usi, 
lonioque raari, Malessque sequacibus undis. 

JEn. v. 189-193. 



CANTO SECOND. 125 

Mute, to the vault their facile steps they bent, 
Where scarce a ray of heaven dim twilight lent. 
Horror appear'd their woman's nerves to shake ; 740 
Not for their own, but for their leader's sake : 
Chok'd Laughter, struggling from his sleeve to burst, 
Express'd how bold they would be, if they durst. 

Ye deities, who, thron'd in gloom profound. 
Guide the blind worms which burrow under 

ground ; "^^^ 

Whose power is mark'd in blinder things than they, 
Great Bulwer's prose, and Mrs. Hemans' lay; 

Ver. 744-747. Ye deities, etc.] 

Di, quibus imperium est aniraarum, Umbrseque silentes, 

Et Chaos, et Phlegetlion, loca nocte tacentia late, 

Sit mihi fas audita loqui ; sit, numine vestro, 

Pandere res alta terra et caligine mersas ! 

ViRG.^^n.vi. 265-268. 
746, 747. Whose power is marked in Hinder things than they, — 
Great Bulweh's prose, and Mrs. Hemans' lay ; ] Though we are not 
aware of having prompted our judgments by the hints of any other writer, 
we are not the first in this country who has paid his critical compliments 
to these two popular names. The author of a book called Sixty Years of 
the Life of Jeremy Levis, (a strange mixture, by the by, of sense and 
nonsense, puerility and masculine expression, studied refinement and 
slovenly carelessness, at all of which we shall have a blow in the 6th or 
7th Canto,) has devoted to the same subject two entire chapters ; one 
of which is a burlesque imitation of the style of The Disowned; while 
the other, whence we have taken one of our mottoes, contains a 
caricatura-parody of Mrs. Hemans, which sets the distinguished merits 
of that lady's school of poetry in so striking a light, that we shall copy 
the whole of it for the benefit of her pupils, and of the admirers of their 
academic exercises. 

" Before I present to you," (says the author to his reader), " the first-born of my 
Muse, I would remark, that I offer it — not from the paternal vanity which expects to 
be gratified with a host of such compUments as ' Pretty dear ! ' and ' Darling little 
fellow ! ' and ' Father's very image ! ' — but simply, because I would prove that it is 
the first of its species, and that the character of deep and impassioned feeling, which 



126 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Give me your reign to speak, O give to tell, 

In fitting terms, the murk, and terrors of your hell ! 

is supposed to belong exclusively to the poetry of the present day, was actually 
known many years ago ! " etc. 



"LINES TO 



" Nay, be not angry, love ! 
Nor turn aside those eyes with brightness shining : 
Can sighy looks and balmy words nought move ? 
Nor the deep breathing of my sad repining ? 

" Thou lov'd one of my soul ! 
Bright being of my rainbow hopes and fears ! 
That on my dreamy hours cloud-like dost roll, 
Fraught with glad sunshine and with dewy tears ! 

" Let me not linger on, 
Ever amid a life so joy-repelling, 
Without one sunny smile to feed upon, 
Or stop the fountain of my grief deep-welling j 

" Without one smile-lit glance, 
Which, with its day-spring hue, like fire-flies burning ! 
May wreathe my spirit in the fairy dance 
Of heart-felt hopes and wishes ever turning, — 

" May be to me a token — 
To me the sadly yet the brightly lost — 
That, though the music of my life is broken, 
Arion-like amid the ocean tost, 

" There still remains 
One gentle chord that floated aye unsunken, 
Ever from hence to be, mid winds and rains, 
A cherish'd thing — unfaded and unshrunken ! 

" Yes ! this shall rest — 
This pressure of thy hand — the softly blushing ! 
An amulet to still my throbbing breast, 
And sooth Despair's dark waves when inward gushing. 

" Then fare-thee-well ! 
Thou beautiful and lov'd ! aye bless'd to be ! 
Over my tomb though toll the teary knell, 
My mouth shall, shell-like, ope to moan for thee." 

Vol. I. p. 216. 

(See also the six following pages, where the novelist, in affecting to point out the 



CANTO SECOND. 127 

Not yet had lost the mottled pump its shine, 75o 

Still to my nostrils clung the fragrant brine, 
When, as I trod the damp, my anxious eyes 
See sudden through the gloom a portal rise 
Whose iron head appear'd to brave the skies. 
Near by, an awful shape was seen to stand, 755 

With lowering brow. A spade sustain'd his hand. 

beauties of the foregoing lines, goes through a minute though burlesque criticism of a 
poetry so admired of ladies and newspapers.) 

Since the above was written, I have found, in the 5th vol. of Mr. 
Lockhart's Life of Sir Walter Scott, the following observation, 
in a letter written from the greatest genius of the day to the first of 
poetesses, the only one indeed, since the time of Sappho, that deserves 
the title: — "Mrs. Hemans," says the illustrious writer, "is somewhat 
too poetical for my taste — too many flowers, I mean, and too little 
fruit."* — We quote this brief remark, not from any satisfaction it 
affords to ourselves as confirmatory of an opinion which has common 
sense and nature to support it, besides the dicta of every critic from 
Aristotle down to Hugh Blair, but because it may help to shake 
the popularity of this writer, (so dangerous to good taste,) with those 
who very justly consider satire no argument, and with whom, very un- 
justly, any the soundest argument, from an unknown source, would have 
little or no weight. 

By the above note, it would appear that the Author of the Vision 
adopts the opinion of Rubeta as his own ; and hence there have not 
been wanting commentators who urge that the criticism is misplaced, 
impertinently asking how Rubeta could be supposed to stumble on any- 
thing like a correct judgment ! By referring to a note of Canto iii, 
(v. 532, 533,) it will be found very easy for him to express the same 
opinion, through conjecture or envy, which another would do from cool 
judgment ; that is, supposing he were the ignorant, ridiculous, and 
malicious blockhead which his poetical historian, and the majority of 
good annotators, have determined to make him. * * 

* Letter from Sir W. Scott to Miss Joanna Baillie : Lockhart's Memoirs 
of the Baronet, Vol. II. p. 328 of the Philad. 8uo. edition. 



128 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Squalid his dress ; a roundabout obscene 
Scarce reach'd his loins, and smallclothes velveteen. 
Bare were his feet, his throat and bosom bare. 
Horrid with filth, and overgrown with hair. 760 

One eyeball quench'd, the other fate had spar'd : 
It seem'd to fire the nose, so fierce it glar'd. 
Mortal he look'd ; but more than mortal vast : 
A Polyphemus leaning on his mast. 

Him when I saw, stiff grew my limbs with dread ; 
I grasp'd my wand, and but for fear had fled. 766 

In my blind zeal, I had outstripp'd the train ; 
And 'gainst mere giants what avails a cane ? 

The Cyclops saw, and upward heav'd his tool : — 
What arrant brought ye here, ye starM owl ? 77o 

Great Bulweb's prose — ] I need scarcely add, having coupled him 
with Mrs. Hemans, that Mr. Bulwer's obscurity is principally of that 
celestial sort which arises from excess of splendor. He has it, however, 
of all sorts. Witness his Athens, the first forty pages (in the Am. ed.) 
of which, and I never could get further, I declare upon my honor, cost 
me more labor than almost any book I ever read ; and I could not tell 
you now one tittle of what it is about. Lycophron is plain sailing to it, 
and Aristotle needs no Twining. 

Ver. 765, 766. Him when 1 saw, stiff grew my limbs with dread; — / 
grasped my wand, and but for fear had fed :] The extremity of the 
hero's terror, which made him pile the iron gate to heaven, see a Cy- 
clops in the awful shape, and rooted his limbs to the ground, is 
perfectly consistent with the greatest courage, and only brings him 
nearer to the heroes of a more removed antiquity. Besides, it is to be 
observed that he has here the excuse which they had not : he knew the 
circumscribed powers of the mystic rod, which only reached to things 
inanimate, and to spirits disembodied ; for he says immediately, 

" And 'gainst mere giants what avails a cane ? " 
that is, had the form been more than a giant, he would not merely have 



CANTO SECOND. 129 

He roar'd : The tournips is it sure ye seek ? 
Arrah ! begone, with your shillelah ; quick, — 
Och ! let Pate Doolan tach ye, dear, to rin : 
Though hoiv the divil got your thief ship in ? 

To which pale Boiteuse, sidling up, reply'd, — 775 
Thou godless lajman ! art thou stultify'd ? 

grasp'd his wand, but struck. For it was not, as the scholiast supposes, 
the impulse of fear which made him grasp it, that is to say, press it ner- 
vously : and the reason which is given in the next verse (767) why he 
would have fled is not at all translatable into an argument of pusilla- 
nimity. He knew that the raging lion stands in awe of a single virgin: 
what then could a giant do before some thirty-six ? Eustathius. 

769. The CrcLOFs saw, and upward heaved his tool : etc.] 

Navita quos jam inde ut Stygia prospexit ab unda 
Per tacitum nemus ire, pedemque advertere ripse, 
Sic prior aggreditur dictis, atque increpat ultro : 
Quisquis es, armatus qui nostra ad flumina tendis, 
Fare age, quid venias ; jam istinc et comprime gressum. 

ViRG. ^n. vi. 385-389. 
The fidelity of Rubeta's narrative is here beautifully conspicuous. 
Like the conscientious son of Venus, he nothing extenuates. * * 

770. — owl] Hie sonat ool, more Hibern. H. Stephanus. 

775. — pale — ] As the crippled nun has not been before distin- 
guished by this epithet, we are to suppose it was alarm for the peril in 
which she saw the darling head, that had whitened her complexion. 

776. To tvhich pale Boiteuse, sidling up, reply^d: etc.] 

Quse contra breviter fata est Amphrysia vates : 
Nullas hie insidise tales : absiste moveri ; 



Nee vim tela ferunt ; - 
» # 



Troius iEneas, pietate insignis et armis, 

Ad genitorem imas Erebi descendit ad umbras. 

Si te nulla movet tantse pietatis imago, 

At ramum hunc (aperit ramum qui veste latebat {i. e. showed 

her leg)) 
Agnoscas. Virg. ^n. vi. 398 - 400 ; 403 - 407. 

17 



130 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Seest not this face threats never angry deed ? 
This goodly stomach turnips cannot feed ? 
Lo ! St. RuBETA, sponge of slander'd maids, 
Would get him children in yon cellar's shades. 780 
If thou respect'st not truth and valor known, 
At least look on this leg, and Boiteuse ow^n ; 
Her sisters own, who, toiling night and day. 
Bleed, cup, and blister, syringe, sing, and pray. 
Go ! get the keys, and straight undo the door, 785 
Or, Patrick Doolan, never see me more ! 

The grim-ey'd porter knew the shrunken thigh, 
Produc'd the keys, nor sullen deign'd reply. 
Slow strains the bolt, the rude wards harshly grate. 
O'er the rough pebbles rubs the loose-hing'd gate, 790 
And, clanging as it struck the vault's hard side, 
Bar'd the dank arch, and spread a passage wide. 

Ver. 787, 783. The grim-ey^d porter knew the shrunken thighj — Pro- 
duc'd the keys, — ] 

Ille, admirans venerabile donum 
Fatalis virgse, longo post tempore visum, 
Cceruleam advertit puppim, ripseque propinquat. 

ViRG. .a:n. vi;408-410. 



CANTO THIRD. 



THE NUNNERY. 



ARGUMENT. 

The episode still continues. — Distress of St. Cholera. 
The sisterhood enter the cave. Generosity of the hero : and 
sordidness of the giant Doolan. The adventure of the en- 
chanted cask : defeat of Chemos and rout of the infernal 
legion. The hero at the edge of the pit of horrors. He is 
held back by the sisters, but leaves his tail, like Joseph, in 
their hands, and descends. His account of what he saw in 
the pit. He announces to the nuns the termination of the 
enterprise, and the vindication of their chastity. His joy 
gives rise to an accident which had nearly proved fatal. The 
triumphal procession : with the song of the nuns. Return 
before the Mother and the green Father. The acquisition of 
the vestal garters. The farewell-address of the hero. Reply 
of the Abbess. The parting-presents of the sisters : what in 
particular Clystera gave : and how the hero responded to 
their kindness. Touching interchange between the hero and 
the Father. The last adieu of Rubeta ; with the overflow of 
the fountain of grief The hero departs from Montreal, 
and returns to New York. What he expected there, and 
how he was disappointed. Rubeta assumes the thread of 
his narrative, where he had broken it off to recount the ex- 
ploits achieved with the mystic wand. Encounter with the 
Brunonians. The hero's peril, escape, and flight. This 
brings him to the convention, and the episode concludes. — 
The monarch now descends from his temporary throne, and 
assumes his place as president of the conclave. Great hub- 
bub in the assembly ; and how appeased. Abstemiousness of 
the hero ; and his eulogium of water. Speech of Petronius. 
The newsmen prepare for the celebration of their mysteries. 



THE 



VISION OF RUBETA 



CANTO THIRD. 

But not for all : one Fate had mark'd that day, 
Condemn'd to suffer while the rest were gay. 

A nun there was, St. Cholera by name, 
Of tender bowels, though of sturdy frame : 
Her, as she thought to follow in the train, 5 

Dire twinges seiz'd of peristaltic pain : 
Writh'd on the floor supine, she grip'd the stones, 
And the vaults echo'd to her shrieks and groans. 

Dark swell'd my doubts ; I rush'd the signs to see. 
Soft ! — said Clystera, — leave this case to me. lo 
TuYAU ! this side. Nay, sister ! bear the rack. 
Fear not, dear chief ; your nun will soon be back : 
Not for a pound of bladders, would I miss 
To see thee rise, like Satan, from the abyss ! 



Ver. 1 -4. But not for all : etc.] 

OuTi fAtr oiV ivhv r\^ aTnfAovas riyav irxi^ivt • 
'"Ex^nvu^ ^i Tis 'iffKt viuTuras, ovYi rt kirir 
"AkKifAos iv ToXifA^, o'lirt (p^ttriv riiriv agn^uf — 

HoM. Odyss. X. 551-553. 
11. TuTAu — '[ One of the train, doubtless, whom she calls to aid 
her, and then directs on which side to support their suifering sister. 



134 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

The cloistress said, and bore her sick along. is 
The rest, behind me, to the cellar throng. 

'T was a strange place, with various lumber spread : 
Here stood a pump ; there lean'd a truckle-bed ; 
Consumptive trestles rest upon their side. 
Two legs embracing, and two sunder'd wide ; 20 
Crack'd pots and lipless jordans seem to sprawl ; 
And piPd up barrels threaten by the wall, 
As thick as in a dance the ankles meet. 
As thick as dashes on Petronius' sheet. 
As thick as stains upon a huckster's lap ; 25 

And lo ! midway the floor, the fatal trap. 

Much mov'd to view the gay, congenial scene. 
Tell me, O virgin, what does all this mean ? 

Ver. 16. The cloistress said, and lore her sick along.] The facility, 
with which on every occasion this amiable yet heroic man suffers him- 
self to be persuaded contrarily to his own impressions, is eminently 
beautiful. Always his doubts return : but directly, like a well-poised 
gilded vane, he veers him where the current blows. What a lovely 
picture of an all but perfect character! See his "Visit"; see his 
" Animal Magnetism " ; see his daily life ! * * 

24. Jis thick as dashes on Petronius' sheet,] See the editorial lucu- 
brations, ruminations, and deviations, in any day's N. Y. American : or, 

for a specimen of Tront's staccato style, consult v. 756, Canto iv. 

# * 

27 - 40. Much mov'd to view the gay, congenial scene, — Tell me, O 
virgin^ what does all this mean ? — I said. Then she, etc.] 
iEneas, miratus enim, motusque tumultu. 
Die, ait, o virgo, quid volt concursus ad amnem ? 



Olli sic breviter fata est longsBva sacerdos : 
Anchisa generate, deiim certissima proles, 



CANTO THIRD. 135 

I said. Then she, whose self-denying charms 
Resign a mortal's for celestial arms : — 30 

O warlike Trajan, Valor's truest breed ! 
Where tow'r yon barrels, turnips lie for seed. 
There too our winter-onions shun the sight. 
The keeper he, and Patrick Doolan hight ; 
Whom men call Pat : he keeps our garden nice, 35 
Weeds the rank herbs, and catches moles and mice. 
Around, the bodies of defunct concerns, 
Unpurg'd by fire, unbury'd, wait their turns. 
Till, call'd by winter, in our stoves heap'd up. 
Their ashes are consign'd to make us soap. 40 

These when I heard, and knew his virtues mild, 
Sore yearn'd my heart for Erin's dirty child. 
To smooth his ruffled down I stretch'd my hand, 
And begg'd we might be friends, in accents bland : — 

Cocyti stagna alta vides, Stygiamque paludem. 

* # # 

Hsec omnis, qiiam cernis, inops inhumataque turba est ; 

Portitor ille, Charon ; 

* » * 

* # # 

Centum errant annos, volitantque hsBC litora circum : 
Turn demum admissi stagna exoptata revisunt. 

Mn. vi. 317, &c. 
31. — Trajan — ] Some MSS. read Trojan ; which however was 
the meaning of the nun. * * 

44. — begg''d ive might be friends in accents hland:] This touching 
generosity has no parallel, save in two instances ; the one in Sisy- 
phus' bastard, (which it most resembles,) the other in the left-hand 
spouse of Dido. But the mighty Doolan was not so surly quite as 
Ajax, who would not speak at all. See Odyss. xi. (Vol 1. pp. 311, 
312, ed. Oxon. Gr. 1797.) 



136 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

For thou art strong, a hairy man to see, 45 

King of the shades, and who a match for thee ! 

Boo ! pit your blarney ivhere ye kapes your cash ; 
I W rather tip a dram than all that flash. 
No more the thirsty Sybarite reply'd, 
But cock'd his orb, and sullen stalk'd aside. 50 



Ver. 45 - 48. Per thou art strong, a hairy man to see, — King of the 
shades, and who a match for thee ! — Boo ! etc.] The sordid spirit 
of the giant Doolan, and the absurdity of his resentment because the 
hero offered him his hand instead of money, are deservedly reprobated 
by Dr. Trapp, and are contrasted to the Christian humility and the 
generosity of the Babe-hunter, with more than the Doctor's usual judg- 
ment. 

Just such a contrast is presented in the colloquy between the Vulnera- 
ble Heel, and the courtly king of Ithaca. Ulysses sings : 

'^tTo V, 'A^tXXiu, 

OvTis avh^, K. T. A.. Odyss. xi. 481 - 485. 

You were a great fellow above stairs, Killet : no man could hold a 
candle to you : ive made quite a god of you : now that you have taken 
lower apartments, I see you are cock of the walk here too. To which 
the melancholy sprite, who seems to have found out that he had been a 
very great fool to sell his life for a song, though the song of Homer, 
answers : 

M^ ^n fiOi ^uvarov yt tret^av^K, (peci^ift,' 'O^virffiu * 

'Av^^t <Ta,^* axX^^cf), Z fih fiioros ^oXvg ilvi, 
"H 'pra.fftv vtKvtffffi xccTa<p^ifjCivot<riv a,voiff<riiv. 

lb. 487-490. 
DonH talk to me in that style, my JVabob : I 'c? rather have brown bread 
and an onion, with a wholesome count j-y -wench, than eat mock-turtle with 
Proserpine. (It was on account of this dissatisfaction, no doubt, that 
he afterward removed his lodgings to the Fauxbourg St. Germain of 
Leuce, where he married Helen, and by the last accounts was passing 
his time quite comfortably.) * * 

49. — Sybarite — ] The Leips. copy has " Cerberus " ; very prop- 
erly. He who can suppose Rubeta so grossly ignorant as to make 
this mistake must think with the Author, and we can only wonder at his 
infatuation. Justice, however, obliges us to add, that the wish with 



CANTO THIRD. 137 

Sick was mj soul, my lids with moisture blink, 
To see a one-ey'd man so giv'n to drink. 
Pensive I watch'd his slow receding heel, 
When from a barrel seem'd this voice to steal : — 

O unsubdu'd by any shameful task, 55 

Hero, and saint, and sage ! heave down this cask. 
'T is Navet's tomb. Once I was plump as you. 
A priest, with eyes of just your angel-hue. 
Taught Sister Navet pleasant ways to sin ; 
And when her time was up here nail'd her in. 60 

rouse thee ! till the coop be downward flung, 
My ghost will still keep bobbing at the bung. 

It ceas'd. A rustling sound ! and the cask shook ! 

1 wait no more ; the oaken coffin, strook. 
Totters, leans doubtful, falls with thundering sound, 65 
And — fifty dozen turnips strow the ground ! 



RuBETA to appear learned, which the Poet and his older commentators 
evidently consider as unredeemed by any actual knowledge, is uni- 
versal, and of some date. A magazine of 1821 thus briefly character- 
izes the hero, according to the notions of that day, (if we are right in 
considering his spirit to pervade the modern journal in which we so 
often parallel his opinions) : 

"The Commercial Advertiser, or Connecticut witchcraft, a Pedant 
in Literature, a Sexton for fast days." * * * 

* " The Literary Companion. Edited by Howard, Jun." Vol. I. No. 2, p. 20. 
New York, June 23, 1821. — Under the brief character above given is one for the 
N. Y. American, which every one will allow is admirably, as concisely, descriptive. 
(It proves moreover the great solidity and firm position of that journal, which, a rare 
example in this world of mutability, has not budged a step, nor lost a type in weight, 
for seventeen years.) 

" The American, less useful than zealous, has all the contortions of the Sybil, 
loithout the inspiration." * * 

18 



138 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

And from the midst a beast, with hispid claws, 
(His tail a file,) fierce eyes, and whisker'd jaws, 
Sprung at my face. Aback I leap'd in fear ; 
For well I knew the Devil by his hair. 70 

Not always present the observant mind ; 
Nor, like a bug, can men have eyes behind. 
One globous root the fiend transform'd of Hell 
Push'd in my way. I slid, lost balance, fell. 
Gallop'd the Devil o'er my face supine, 75 

And scatter'd, as he went, his soil and brine. 

Dire rous'd my manhood : starting up, I cry'd, 
Avaunt, loose Chemos ! Satan, be defy'd! 

Gone is loose Chemos ; but, when in my ire 
I smote around me till the stones flash'd fire so 



Ver. 76. And scattered, as he went, his soil and brine.] Batle, who 
laughs at Rubeta's notion of the metamorphosis, and bluntly calls the 
animal a rat, says that this was a very natural effect of the creature's 
fright There are some men who will believe nothing, though even, as 
our saintly hero himself says, " one should arise from the dead and 
attest it."* ** 

78. — Chemos — ] One of Milton's devils : "Chemos, th' obscene 
dread of Moab's sons:" the same for whom Solomon built an altar, in 
the days when he was old and "his wives turned away his heart," 
" women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and 
HiTTiTEs :" as we read: "Then did Solomon build a high place for 
Chemos H, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusa- 
lem." 1 Kings xi. 7. Chemos is supposed by St. Jerome to be the 
same with the heathen Priapus. Therefore, when Rubeta found a 
devil in the convent, his penetration told him at once which one of the 
infernal Powers it must be. * * 

* See Visit, etc. : and, for a justification of this adoption of the sacred language^ 
when made by such a man as Rubeta, see our note to v. 553 of Canto ii. * * 




QaUop'd tite De^vU o'er my face supcn&, 
An.d scaUer 'd, as h^went, kls &olI and Irrins. 



CANTO THIRD. 139 

And the casks bellow'd fear-struck, in a trice, 
Out rush'd ten thousand imps, in shapes of mice ; 
Imp upon imp ; not such their number, when, 
Wing'd on the sulphurous air, in form like men 
Long since create, they sped, at signal given, 85 

Their horizontal flight, in scorn of Heaven, 
Over Hell's concave. He that knew their stock, 
And coats transmuted, scarce had stood the shock 
Were his soul double-leather. Not so I : 
Though shriek'd the nuns, my brand I flourish'd 
high, 90 

And smote the infernal legion, hip and thigh. 
Out, pup of Baal ! — I cry'd, — Black Peor's brood, 
RuBETA smites ye ! Not one devil stood. 

Ver. 82. — ten thousand, etc.] It is not wonderful that he who could 
laugh at Rubeta's idea of the devil murine should rail at this numer- 
osity, and accordingly Mons. Batle facetiously terms this figure, which 
is but a kind of synecdoche, a periphobic hyperbole ! assigning it the 
same origin with the use of the word hispid, (v. 67,) to express what in 
the eyes of any other man, Pat Doolan for instance, could only be soft 
and fine hair. * * 

83. — not such their number, when, — Winged on the sulphurous air, 
etc.] See Milton : Par. L. i. 751, etc. 

89. — soul — ] Sole in some MSS. It is of no consequence, though 
we prefer the reading in the text. Rubeta's love of the elegant 
species of pleasantry vulgarly called pun, we have before remarked. 

# # 

90. — shriek'd the nuns — ] For fear he should knock down more 
barrels. Batle. 

92. — PsoB — ] Another name for Chemos. 

Peor his other name, when he entic'd 

Israel in Sittim on their march from Nile 

To do him wanton rites Par. Lost, i. 412. 



140 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

With horrid squeaks, they fled on lightning-feet, 
And bore to Hell the news of their defeat. 95 

I wip'd my brow, and breath'd. Then round me 
pour 
The nuns' congratulations in a show'r ; 
Brief notes of exclamation, flattering names ; 
While bursts of laughter shook their happy frames. 
E'en DooLAN, joyful, shouted in his glee, loo 

Och^ dear, St. Patrick was a fool to ye ! 

Sweet friends ! — I said, — enough. Yet, did ye 
know 
What powers I 've beat — Mice, sure ! — A direr foe. 
In the dread rout, which flash'd your cavern o'er, 
Six thousand devils had their backs made sore. los 

What ! were they devils ? Heavens ! what a 
crowd ! 
And the glad sisters once more laugh'd aloud. 

When tir'd they ceas'd, (though, sooth, I blush'd 
deep red 
To be so flatter'd,) bending low my head, 
O ye, — I add, — who sleep alone of nights, no 

Foes to the double-bed and nuptial rites I 

Ver. 105. Six thousand — ] Most of the commentators and critics 
are very merry at this lapse of Rubeta's. The hero, say they, was 
either lying, (and the memory on such occasions is seldom very exact,) 
or had not yet recovered from the confusion of his fright. Bayle says, 
Both. For our own part, we do not see why we should not read here, 
as in v. 82, Ten thousand. * * 



CANTO THIRD. 141 

Cool though ye see me stand, by Heav'n I swear 

My heart perspires for every turnip there ! 

If such, not relics of some erring sister 

(Penn'd in yon barrel by the priest who kist her, ii5 

She and her embryon-friar, to die like brutes !) 

By Hell thus metamorphos'd into roots ; 

(Else was the voice, which thunder'd Heave them 

down ! 
Black Chemos' own, who envies my renown ;) — 
A voice ! What voice ? — A voice ye could not 

hear : 120 

A voice assum'd to prove, or vex my ear. 
Whate'er the cause, thus much : let maids believe. 
We do, dread chief. But pray, what ails your 

sleeve ? 
I turn'd my wrist, and saw an awful sight, 
That pass'd unnotic'd in the coil of fight. 125 

A nail, in some vile cask, had caught the stuff, 
And ripp'd it, from the shoulder to the cuff! 

Ver. 112, Cool though ye see me stand — ] It is ask'd how comes the 
Rat-subduer so cool, who in v. 96 is so heated ? It is answered, the 
same eagerness of vindication (arising from his intuitive and thorough- 
bred politeness) which made him swear, though more adverse to solemn 
asseveration than even the Fox of the fable,* wiped away all sense of 
his fatigue and superhuman exertions, and threw the perspiration on his 
heart * * 

* A fox, full-fraught with seeming sanctitj-', 
That fear'd an oath, but like the Devil would lie ; 
Who look'd like Lent, and had the holy leer, 
And durst not sin before he said his pray'r. 

Cock and the Fox, by Dryden. — Corrector. 



142 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Fain would the fair with pins close up the rent. 
Honor and sense forbade : — 'T were time misspent; 
Homeward now hies the Sun to Thetis' lap. 130 

Haste, gentle Doolan, then, and lift the trap. 

And ishnH it then barred ? grim Pat reply'd : — 
But for your sake I HI looshe him f other side. 
Your honor shmells a rat, tis plain to see. 
King of the traps, och, who can catch like ye ! 135 

Pale as the youth in toil of passion caught 
For soulless dame, who means to grant him naught, 

Ver. 129. Honor and sense forbade — ] That is, glory (or, the love 
of glory) and good sense ; the two distinguishing traits in the Ragged 
Sleeve's remarkable character: nowhere more conspicuous perhaps, 
especially the latter, than in his recent exertions in the cause of Animal 
Magnetism. * * 

We beg the liberty to enter our humble dissent from the Editor's in- 
terpretation. The more probable, as well as plainer, sense of the pas- 
sage seems to us to be : Honor, which bade him make haste to finish 
the task he had undertaken, and Common Sense, which whispered it 
was foolish to regard a torn sleeve when " the trap " was so soon to hide 
the injury. — My boy advises me that honor and sense may signify merely 
a sense of honor, by a figure of speech, which, he says, is very com- 
mon in the classic poets. As Rubeta's devotion to these ancient idols 
is so well known, I am not sure but the stripling is wiser than both 
of us. Corrector. 

132, 133. — grim Pat reply'd : — " But for your sake I Ul looshe him V other 
si£?e."] It is really refreshing as well as delightful, to observe the effect 
which great virtue, of whatever kind, has even upon a prejudiced and 
stubborn mind. This world is surely not so bad as some bad people 
would have it ! * * 

136-145. Pale as the youth, etc.] Rubeta must mean to describe 
unlawful passion, as he uses the word dame, where nymph would be 
more poetical. Vet. Schol. 

Very absurd. What should Rubeta know of unlawful passion ? 
though, it is true, such case as is here described is common enough. 



CANTO THIRD. 143 

Yet fascinates the while with serpent-art, 

And feeds her vanity upon his heart ; 

Nor night nor day gives solace to his breast, i40 

Scorch'd with desire, and frenzy'd with unrest ; 

Yet paid, fond fool ! for aching heart and brain, 

When, after hours of watching, cramp'd with pain. 

He sees, as slow her lattices unclose. 

Ecstatic joy ! his angel blow her nose. 145 

Thus stood I at the edge. O who had seen. 

In that dread hour, those maids of peerless mien. 

Waiting, with eyes all brine, and mouths askew. 

To see the abyss ingulf me from their view, 

O who, of woman born, their love had seen, 150 

Nor shed his water though nine times hoop'd in ? 



However, there be coy nymphs as well ; with which class the hero is a 
very Albertus : witness the following master-stroke, from that master- 
piece, the Mysterious Bridal : — 

— " unimpressible even by waking visions of bliss with the fair Christina 
DiefendorfF in his warm embrace : " 

A passage which shows, with singular felicity, the rise, progress, and 
ultimate reach of love, in a single sentence. * * 

148. Waiting, with eyes all brine and mouth askew,] Whereon com- 
menting, the same critic whom we have so often quoted in this particular 
adventure, says it was with some other emotion than grief. It is uncer- 
tain whether the Poet was of his opinion, (that the Rat-router was de- 
ceived,) or of ours (that he judged impartially) : but it is certain, that the 
man must have a very bad heart who can suspect the nuns of laughing 
at such a moment. * * 

151. JVor shed his water — ] Understand from the eyes, all the com- 
mentators and critics to the contrary notwithstanding. * * 

We could wish, however, that the modest Editor had let us see some 
of their opinions. Corrector. 



144 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Who but that 's buckled up, from toe to heel, 

In panoply of Duty's triple steel ? 

Who 's harness'd thus may brave an angel's tears, 

Nor 'gainst Ligeia's self need stop the ears. 155 

But lo ! the trap-door opens, and a face, 
Red as the Sun, floats upward in the space. 
So bounds Troxartes' image from the toy, 
Touch'd slily by the thumb of some great boy ; 
Whose little brother, frighted and amaz'd, 16O 

Starts back. I started too: but, as I gaz'd 
The glowing disk Pat's single eye reveal'd. 
Glaring portentous o'er the twilight field. 
Thus comets from their distance seem opake, 
Till some bright star shines through their flimsy 
make. 165 

And now, all ready to descend the pit. 
My grave perhaps, or worse, the grave of wit ; 



Ver. 158. — TaoxAnfEs — ] One of Homer's mice. We hope the 
use of this name, and that of the Siren above (v. 155), will convince the 
most skeptical that the hero is a man of erudition. For who but such a 
one could know them ? And accordingly the commentators, who hither- 
to have taken a pleasure to ridicule his pretensions to knowledge, are 
silent at this passage ; undoubtedly struck dumb by their convictions. 
We must except, however, one critic, the philosophic M. Bayle ; who 
exclaims, at this part, Vraiment, c'est un savantasse trhs-amusanL que 
notre Mros ! * * 

167, 178. My grave, perhaps, or worse, the grave of wit ; — {Learning 
itself might perish there ; who knew !) ] A climax of anticipated horrors 
that deserves remarking. It occurs to the hero, first, that he might be 
going to bury himself in the abyss: this little moves him. But his wit 
may be quenched for ever in the gloom and terrors (or, as others wish, in 



CANTO THIRD. 145 

(Learning itself might perish there ; who knew !) 
To fame and light I breath'd this sad adieu : — 

Oh doorless domicile ! oh senseless sheets, 170 

Where each new stain some filthier brother meets ! 



the mephitic damps) of that Stygian pit. Horror of horrors ! his very 
learning, that on which he most prides himself, (and for which, we may 
add, his countrymen are most indebted to him,) may there forsake him 
for ever ! the impression of past studies be rased eternally from the 
brazen tables of his brain, and memory become a chaos of jostling 
images and phrases less connected than the babble of his contemporary, 
Petronius! 

Bayle, following up his fancy, is very merry upon this occasion: 
Rdbeta, he says, who best knew what his wits were, was afraid they 
would run away from him in the dark ! Void le Mros des nonnettes dans 
un Strange embarras ! il a peur que la raison ne lui aille ichapjper. 
Sans doute, personne ne savait mieux que lui comme elle a une grands 
facilitd de s^igarer. See his Observations sur la Vie du Colonel RubHe ; 
MUanges Hisioriques, ddition de Miaco, in-4to., tome 4% p. 77 : or the 
translation of the same work recently imprinted, with great elegance, 
at Passamaquoddt, in imitation of the Paris ed. of ]812, 9 vols. 8vo. 
Vol. VIII. p. 63. ** 

170. Oh doorless domicile ! — ] The palace, study, " snuggery," museum, 
rendered illustrious, as the dwelling of Rubeta, eternal, as the scene of 
his lucubrations, and holy, as the spot whither, in the absence of his 
lawful spouse, he led the inspired, unreluctant fair, whose sightless orbs, 
though windowed with bottle-green lenses, and wadded close with 
" cotton batts," pierce through the dark equally well (we speak it rever- 
ently) with "the eye of Omnipotence." 

We can throw a light on the above note only by referring to certain passages from 
Rubeta's " Letter on Animal Magnetism." 

— "my house, to which I endeavoured to lead her. The house is No. 36 Church street 
— is very peculiar in its construction — having no door upon the street" — p. 31, 1st 
edition. 

Be it observed in passing, that it was only in imagination, and " through the air," 
that the hero, who is " used to these excursions " (as everybody knows that reads 
him) led the " clairvoyante" ; for, the soul of propriety, he never would have 
thought of doing so in fact. — " Snuggery " and " cotton batts " are elegant ex- 
pressions used in his Letter by this master of English, and rival of Petronius : 
and for the former, we gather from the Papers of the Pickwick Club (pt. iv. p. 137. 
Phil.), that there is a little closet in the Fleet prison which bears the same choice 

19 



146 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

No more self-blazon'd shall your lord appear, 
Poet, historian, nov'list, pamphleteer ! 
Oh loveliest book that ever cumber'd stall. 
Where all Manhattan's costive infants squall, 175 

title. — A card being handed to the inspired Miss Lorain a, so enveloped '' in a 
thick blue paper "' that, as the writer of it said, no other than the eye of Omnipotence 
could read it, the superhuman Miss Loraika " did not take it to bed with her, but 
retired into a dark room to make it out," and, " before morning," as Rubeta de- 
poneth, actually did read it : whence it follows that the miraculous Miss Loraina 
is omnipotent, a conclusion both perfectly sensible and allowable on the part of an 
" evangelical Christian " like our hero 3 for, as he says himself, albeit his brains are 
zigzag, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philoso- 
phy (p. 61) ; and again, if testimony like that to which he has referred, is to be rejected, 
where are we to look for the proofs of the miracles sustaining the divine origin of the 
Christian religion ? (p. 39.) 

172, 173. Self-blazon^ d, etc.] Refers to Rubeta's bringing out his 
own children in his own noAvspaper (the " sheets " before mentioned) ; 
of which we have given one example in the notes to Canto ii. Isaac 
Vossius would have it that the sheets are of his bed, which he fears 
he shall never more revisit ! " Quanto rectius, &c." * * 

174-177. Oh loveliest book, etc.] "The New York Book of Poetry, 
1 vol. New York: Geo. Dearborn. — A very pretty volume, of very 
pretty poetry, etc. etc. We make one or two selections." M Y. Am. 
Dec. 31, 1836. The first selection is thus, (we quote the first of its 
four stanzas:) — 

"HE CAME TOO LATE! -BY MISS . 

'' He came too late ! neglect had tried 

Her constancy too long 5 
Her love had yielded to her pride, 

And the deep sense of wrong. 
She scorned the offering of a heart 

Which lingered on its way, 
Till it could no delight impart. 

Nor spread one cheering ray." etc. etc. 

" What delicacy," (exclaims the enraptured Petronius,) " what 
delicacy, what lofty conception of the nature of genuine affection, what 
womanly tenderness is there in these beautiful stanzas." Did we not 
know him to be a Boeotian, 

Vervecum in patria, crassoque sub aere, nasci,* 
we should think he were jesting, or were paying, at the expense of his 

*Juv. X. 50. ** 



CANTO THIRD. 147 

Close your white leaves ; the swan no more shall sing, 
That made, for you, a dunce of Israel's king ! 

conscience, one of those compliments to the sex which are usually man- 
ufactured by a kind of men who think that women will swallow any 
falsehood or absurdity provided it be meant to be flattering. The other 
selection is " A Visit from St. JVicholas. — By C. C. Moore.'''' ( — pueri- 
que patresque severi carmina dictant.*) En void le style : 

"A. bundle of toys he had flung on his back, 
And he look'd like a pedlar just opening his pack." etc. etc. 

'' The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, 
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath. 
He had a broad face and a little round belly, 
That shook, when he laugh'd, like a bowl full of jelly." etc etc. 

Vos 6 patricius sanguis, qtws vivere fas est 
Occipiti cceco, posticae occurrite sannae.f 

We regret to see this nonsense from so very respectable a man : but 

When grave professors stoop to folly 
And find too late the Muse betray, \ 

we have nothing left us but to do our duty. Such trash is not to be 
given to the public as pretty poetry, though it were the product of the 
whole faculty § : 

Hos pueris monitus patres infundere lippos 

Cum videas, quaerisne unde hsec sartago loquendi 

Venerit in linguas ? || 

p. S. Some time after the above was written, we fell over the book, 
and found that Rony's unhappy friendship had unjustly libelled it in his 
selections. It is really what he meant to have it appear, a very pretty 
book of very pretty poetry. Many pieces might we cite that would justi- 
fy his high eulogium; but, simply noticing the following lovely and 
sensible lines " By C. F. Hoffman " : 

" There are birds in the woodland bowers, 

Voices in lonely dells, 
And streams that talk to the listening hours 

In earth's most secret cells. 
There is life on the foam-fleck'd sand 

By ocean's curling lip," 

(Lord Byron always professed himself very intimate with Am- 

* HoR. ad Augustzim. v. 109. ed. Gesn. * * t Pers. i. 61. Casavb. * * 

X Parody of Goldsmith. * * 

§ Mr. Moore is a professor at the Theol. Seminary in N. Y. * * 

II Pers. i. 79. * * 



148 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Oh Dearborn, oh ! Frigidity and Rant 
Must leave unsepulchred the name of Brant ! 



phitrite. Perhaps he taught her that trick of the mouth for which 
Miss Land ON makes him so remarkable. Of course it is her upper 
lip which is here intended :) 

" There is life on the foam-fleck'd sand 

By ocean's curling lip, 
And life on the still lake's strand 

'Mid flowers that o'er it dip ; 
There is life in the tossing pines 

That plume the mountain crest, 
And life in the courser's mane that shines 

As he scours the desert's breast : " 

we pass to that long poem, to which all the rest of the volume, includ- 
ing the little Cupid of the frontispiece, sitting on the stock of an anchor, 
on top of the ocean, shooting at a sheep's heart on a mountain, — to which 
even this is nothing, — that exquisite effusion on the Sepulchre of David, 
published under the assumed name of " Wm. L. Stoke," (the author being 
really Rubeta, as the text will prove,) an effusion which equals the 
enchanting melodies of " Thos. Sternhold, John Hopkins, and 
others," and like them may be " set forth and allowed to be sung of all 
the people together, in private houses, for their godly solace and 
comfort." 

And now. Reader, the clerk having given out the number, and the 
pitchpipe being struck, let us sing, to the praise and glory of " Stone," 
these thirty-two verses of his Davido-Sepulchral Psalm, uncommon 
metre : 

*' He cast his anxious eye " Death came upon the blast j 

Where slept great David's son, As by the lurid light 

Where Wisdom's ashes lie, They saw that he had passed, 

The peerless Solomon! And triumphed in liis might : 

*' He rais'd his ruthless arm " For on the chilly ground, 

Against the low-arched wall — Inanimate as clay, 

While wild and dread alarm The troubled monarch found 

Rang through the vaulted hall. His favourite captains lay. 

" Loud on the monarch's ear " Aghast and pale he fled, — 

Broke the hoarse thunder's crash — And shook through every limb — 

And blazed around the bier Cold drops rolled down his head, 

The vivid lightning's flash. Lest death should follow him ! 



CANTO TPIIRD. 149 

I said, and sighing, bow'd me to descend ; ibo 

But fifty hands held back my nether end. 



^' He raised a marble fane " And oft in after years 

Upon the hallowed spot He woke in wild affright, 

But ne'er, O ne'er again And wailed with scalding tears, 

Could that night be forgot ! The deed of that dread night ! " 

Sperare nefas sit vatibus ultra* Whoever shall read this psalm, shall 
think, indeed, Homer but a frogjlght-singer, and Virgil the tame poet 
of a gnat : 

" Cedite Romani scriptores, cedite Graii," 
Et quos fama recens vel celebravit anus. 
Hasc qnicunque leget tantum cecinisse putabit 
Mseonidem ranas, Virgilium culices. 

(Sam. Barrow, in MUtoni Parad. Amissam.) 

The only thing that can at all come up to it is " Midnight Thoughts," 
in the same book, " by Wm. Duer " ( Qidd si idem, &c. ?f ) the President, 
we believe, of Columbia College in N. York, being an address to the 
Moon, or, as the poet there calls it, with equal originality and reverence, 
" Th' Almighty's sentinel." En pallor, seniumque ! X 

Having given unabridged the Author's ironical compliments, we beg the Reader's 
attention to a few serious remarks of our own. In this same " New York Book of 
Poetry," there are some exceptions to the character of drivelling insipidity and puerile 
romance which makes the contents so worthy the vulgarity of the title. Foremost of 
these exceptions we would place the masculine Lines to a Skull, a translation from 
the German, " by D. Seymour." The taste and ability, which this little piece dis- 
plays, correspond very well with the character of the writer, of whom we have heard 
enough to make us wonder that we have not heard more. A man who was master of 
five languages besides his own before he was nineteen, two of which (the Greek and 
Latin) are so little well-known in this country, and who united, at the same early age, 
in a most elastic mind, the judgment of maturity with the fire of youth, combining a 
correctness of taste, almost extinct in the present generation, with a most retentive 
memory, and habits of methodical application very uncommon in a man of genius, 
such a man, a man moreover so honorable and highminded, as I hear that he is, should 
be doing more than laboring in the drudgery of a profession which he is not forced 
to practise, or than writing pieces which can confer no lasting reputation, nor even 
such a temporary one as a person of his rare abilities is bound to aspire to. 

Having done this act of justice, let us ask, how it happens that the N. York Review, 
(No. ii.,) in noticing the Book of Poetry, selects for commendation the nursery- 
rhymes of Prof. Moore, and the romantic stuff of Mr. Hoffman, while it passes 
entirely the verses of Mr. Seymour, and the other few pieces which show something 

* ViD^ Poet. * * 

t ViRG. Eel. V. 9. " Quid, si idem certet Phoebum superare canendo ? " * * 

1 Pers. i. 26. * * 



150 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

First of the line, Fretille and Boiteuse stand, 
Both clinging to one skirt with either hand ; 

like good sense, strong thought, and felicitous expression? Was it that Mr. H. 
is the editor of a Magazine, and Prof. Moore an influential member of society, 
and of connexions influential in society, and that both were possibly personal friends 
of the Reviewers ? A want of independence, in a Review which professes to be im-_ 
partial, is a want of honesty. * * 

178, 179. Oh JDearborn, oh ! Frigidity and Rant — Must leave unsepul- 
chredthe name of Brant .'1 On the cover of the pamphlet of Animal 
Magnetism are " Proposals, by George Dearborn & Co., for publish- 
ing by subscription the Life of Joseph Brant," (by Rubeta,) "at the 
low price of Three Dollars and Jijty cents.''^ We cannot but congratu- 
late the public on the prospect thus afforded them of a rich historical 
treat from the pen of the author of A Letter on Animal Magnetism. 
The angelic simplicity, delightful credulity, and amazing acquaintance 
with the intellectual and moral system of humanity, displayed in this 
latter publication, are the best warrant to the subscribers of the forth- 
coming history that their money will be well bestowed.* * * 

180. / said — ] The hero's pathetic adieu to glory and this upper air 
is evidently an imitation of a most beautiful apostrophe, in the Atistode- 
mo of Monti. A man of Rubeta's constant and various reading, of 
his wonderful judgment, and prodigious memory, a man so keenly alive 
to the beautiful in nature and in art, it may easily be supposed would 
have the impression of many such passages constantly threading the 
" zigzags " of his brain ; and indeed this fact is daily illustrated. But 
the lines in Aristodemus are these; 

Oh dirupi d'It6me, oh sacre sponde 

Del sonante Ladone e del Pamiso, 

Piu non udrete delle mie vittorie 

I cantici guerrieri ! Oh reggia, oh casa 

De' generosi Eraclidi, infamata 

E di sangue innocente ancor vermiglia, 

^ One of Rubeta's hostile contemporaries accused the historian of being seen 
everywhere soliciting people to subscribe to his book. We thought the accusa- 
tion mere scandal, till we heard with our own ears one of the most respectable men 
in New York assert that he himself had been taken in by a personal application j 
which, of course, there was no resisting, especially " at the low price of Three 
Dollars and fifty cents J' Such being the case, we consider that the hero's alms- 
begging is to be ascribed not to the mere love of lucre, nor yet of notoriety, but to 
that anxiety for the welfare of other men's souls and understanding, which, as in 
the case of Cato [Canto i.), obliges him to thrust the means of good upon them, 
lest, if left to their own inclinations, they might neglect them. Accordingly, at a 
late lecture, urged by the same high motive, he took occasion to give his audience 
a gentle hint to the same effect, as will be seen in a note to Canto iv. '^ * 




—B.WBoni^eW WH.-GraP'" 



Off comes thx skirt, disjointed by tke strain, 
And stjig^erLizg backward, down fell a Li tM [rain. . 



Ca^nloS P. 151 



CANTO THIRD. 151 

Fast to their robes two other sisters grow ; 

To these two more ; and so, through all the row. 185 

Off comes the skirt, disjointed by the strain. 

And, staggering backward, down fell all the train. 

I seiz'd the lucky moment, gain'd th' abyss. 

And left them bawling for my tail to kiss ; 

Happy, who could console herself with this ! i90 

Adown, majestically slow, I sunk. 
Step after step, till disappear'd my trunk. 
Then finally descends my beaver'd head. 
And light no more on awestruck mortals shed ; 

Ricopriti d' orror, piomba sul capo 
D'un empio padre, e nelle tue rovine 
L'infamia tua nascondi e il mio delitto ! 
Atto iii. Sc. 2. ( Tragedie del Monti j ed, 5ta Fiorentina, p. 62. 

It would not be easy to find any thing in poetry more melodious ; and 
(as those who are acquainted with the tragedy well know) nothing can 
be of more exact propriety. * * 

194. And light no more on awestruck mortals shed;"] Ursinus under- 
stands the verse as having allusion to the lustre of his talents ; Ponta- 
Nus, as simply expressing the brilliancy of his visual organs, whereof, 
as we had frequent occasion to see, the " Captain of the Veils " was 
particularly and justly proud. Both conjectures are correct ; for there 
are two meanings included in the phrase ; the more obvious one, that of 
PoNTANUs, the other of Ursinus. The elder Vossius, choosing a 
middle path, writes, the effulgence of his countenance as illuminated 
by the mind within, as well as by the radiance of the organs of vision : 
and it is to be observed that these latter may draw their very beauty 
from the mind, according to Akenside.* However, Joseph Scaliger 

* Mind, mind alone, (bear witness, Earth and Heaven !) 
The Hving fountains in itself contains 
Of beauteous and sublime : 



And again 



Thus doth Beauty dwell 
There most conspicuous, even in outward shape, 
Where dawns the high expression of a mind. 

Pleas, of Imagin. Book i. 



152 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

As when the moon o'erfloods the arch with light, 195 
And none but brightest planets share the night, 
Wrapt in a silver-purfled cloud retires 
Some brilliant orb, and veils his modest fires. 
Far as from ceiling downward to the floor 
The cavern yawns, twice such a depth, and more, 200 

confines the application of the phrase to the sisterhood, who (he says) 
stood, or lay, to the crown of Rubeta's head, now slowly setting below 
the verge of the pit, in the relation of those who on earth gaze pen- 
sively at a brilliant planet about to be swallowed up by a cloud ; an 
interpretation which, as favored by the simile immediately following in 
the text, does not displease me. Yet, even in this case, the epithet 
" awestruck," or, as Isaac Vossius boldly reads it, sliddering, for which 
ScHEFFER proposes to substitute stumbling, and the learned Salma- 
sius, so famous for the controversy which he had with Milton, more 
elegantly, but less strongly, supplies erring, even here, the epithet, 
though directly applicable to the vestals, bears a reflected adaptation to 
mortals in general. But Scioppius suspects that the word " mortals " 
is an error which has crept into the text, and tells us he remembers 
having seen a copy which read virgins : and I have myself heard it 
reported that a mutilated Codex, in the possession of Father Richards, 
has actually the hemistich thus : — on Mart's children shed ; a reading 
which, even if the MS. be genuine, may (when we consider the Catho- 
lic predilections of that distinguished person) be reasonably suspected. 

# # 

199-201. Far as from ceiling downward to the floor — The cavern 
yaivns, twice such a depth and more, — Gapes the black pit : — ] 

Tum Tartarus ipse 
Bis patet in praeceps tantum, tenditque sub umbras, 
Quantus ad aethereum cceU suspectus Olympum. 

^n. vi. 577-579. 

199 - 202. Far as, etc.] Thus exclaim the hostile commentators : — The 
cave under the cellar of depth more than twice the extent from roof to 
floor of the cellar itself? and so dark that daylight never reaches its 
bottom? Bravo, Rubeta ! — Now be it known, a hero like Rubeta is 
incapable of magnifying such a matter, much less of directly lying. 
Therefore, the exaggeration (if such it be) is to be regarded as a figure of 
speech. Does not Virgil speak of the hundred huge doors of the 



CANTO THIRD. 153 

Gapes the black pit. A ladder points the way, 
Whose base no sunshine marks with dusky ray. 
Here slimy snails and mottled toads abound, 
And a cold horror shivers o'er the ground. 

Midway, when as I knelt to pray for aid, 205 

The genius of the place my voyage stay'd. 
I saw her not, but heard her well known drone* 
My son, — it drawPd, — whom I delight to own. 
Heir to my denseness, darkness, my frigidity. 
My dulness, stiffness, empty insipidity, 210 

Enough for love of me and folly done ; 
Go, match'd in froth and impudence by none ; 



Sibyl's cave, and the hundred voices, when everybody knows there 
was no such superfluity of entrances or echoes ? What is Virgil to 
RuBETA, or the Euboic cavern to the cellar of the Hotel Dieu? * * 

205. Midway, when as I knelt to pray for aid,'] Scioppius is quite 
delighted at the idea of having caught in this place the hero in a down- 
right falsehood : for how, says he, could the monkey kneel on a ladder? 
Now, not to say that a monkey (an injurious expression, quite unworthy 
of so learned a critic,) might kneel as well in one place as another, what 
was to hinder the Vault-explorer, who undoubtedly descended the ladder 
with his face towards it, from resting his knees on one of the rounds, 
while he continued to sustain himself in his position by his hands ? But 
the difficulty, if there be any, is done away with entirely, by reading, 
with the first Aldine edition, paused. However, in what way soever we 
regard the passage, we cannot but derive from it a new argument in 
favor of the constant unpretending piety and unchanging humility of 
the modern ^Eneas, who never even buttons up his breeches without 
asking assistance of the gods. * * 

212. — froth and impudence — ] Servius interprets these phrases, 
grandeur, dignity of carriage, and boldness or daring, as, above, tlie 
word " folly," foolish people, persons incapable of appreciating his sacri- 
fices and exertions ; explaining the distich thus: Enough has been done 
for love of me, (i. e. of opacity &c.) and for the benefit of those ivho are 
20 



154 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Thou truer man than twenty gutless Catos, 
Ascend ! for here there 's nothing but potatoes. 

More might she say ; but faint the accents come, 
Mix'd minc'd-up mess, of murmur, sob, and hum ; 216 
Such as from age or driv'lling palsy creep; 
Th' opacous goddess then fell fast asleep. 
I heard her snore ; though other men, my foes, 
Will swear it was the Cyclops Doolan's nose. 220 

But once more, joyful, I salute the day. 
And to the nuns their handywork display. 
Then all the saints from each shrill windpipe burst. 
The darlings would have kiss'd me if they durst. 
And, Say, — they cry'd, — ^What bless'd those eyes 
below ? 225 

With all my heart. First, suffer me to blow. — 
Know then, I 've touch'd at Heaven, have sounded 

Hell, 
And skimm'd the pool where parted spirits dwell. 
But Hell alone deserves your present ear. 
(I travell'd there entranc'd, as will appear.) 230 

unworthy of thy efforts ; Go, unequalled in majesty and daring valor. 
So understand it, in the teeth of Heyne, Ursi.nus, Dousa, La Cerda, 
Segrais, and every other respectable commentator and critic. The ob- 
servation indeed of Het>^e and Cerdanus, that men of Rubeta's stamp 
glory in the possession of qualities which other men detest, or ridicule 
and despise, is beneath notice, even though coming from such au- 
thorities. * * 

214. . — here there '5 nothing but potatoes.] See " Visit," &lc. 

222. jind to the nuns their handywork display.] Either his remaining 
tail, or the place of its departed brother. Vet. Schol. 



CANTO THIRD. 155 

First, Satan is not black, as poets feign, 
But, save his tail, snow-white, without a stain ; 
And wears green spectacles to shade his eyes. 
Death, under Sin, his cooking-range supplies. 
Chief of which stock Matthias drew my gaze, 235 
Stretch'd on his back to broil amid the blaze. 
Him Moloch by, in apron asbestine, 
Prick'd duly with a fork of double tine. 
Pops the tense skin, with air exuding grease. 
Like the dun sack of pudding Bolognese. 240 

The Prophet's beard perfum'd the fiery air 
Like singing wool, yet shrivelPd not a hair ! 
Now when I heard the barbecue sore-moan, 
Matthew, — I said, — what is it makes thee groan? 
— 'T is not the fire, — he cry'd (and gave a yell), — 
But that curs'd book, which finds me here in Hell 246 



Ver. 237. — asbestine,'] The accent sharp upon the last syllable, and 
the penultima slurred ; a poetical mispronunciation. * * 

239, 240. Pops the tense skin, with air exuding grease, — Like the dun 
sack of pudding Bolognese.] We derive from this incident a valuable 
piece of information, namely, that spirits in the infernal regions are not 
disembodied. Rubeta's authority, in matters of fact and observation, 
is unquestionable. See our note at v. 258, below, where is also ex- 
plained this anticipation of time with Matthias. *^ 

241. The propheVs beard — ] While that vulgar knave Matthew, or 
Matthews, whose cozening devilry in private families the wise Ru- 
BETA deemed it incumbent upon him to chronicle, lest the benevolent 
curiosity of the old maids of Manhattan should die ungratified, was 
playing the prophet under the name of Matthias, he wore a beard of 
a length and fulness quite in character with his Oriental pretensions. 

246, 247. But that cursed book, etc.] Sc. his Life by Rubeta ; the 



156 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

More pangs than all the damn'd bear all together ! 
Were that remov'd, the rest were but warm weather. 
— Content thee then, O Matthew, (I replj'd,) 
Another farce has thrust that quite aside. 250 

But soon my brain fresh fooleries shall spawn, 
T' out-flounce all floundering nonsense earlier-born, 
All too that fools may drop of later date. 
^- Hell, do thy worst ! the Prophet cry'd, and 

straight. 
Swift as a bullfrog to his native plashes, 255 

Turn'd on his belly, and was burn'd to ashes. 

memory of which still haunts, in the shades, the victim of biography. 
Vet. Schol 

250. Another farce, etc.] Monk's book, it is plain, from what Rub 
tells the abbess in Canto ii. * * 

251-253. But soon WIT/ hraiti fresh fooleries shall spawn, — T" out- 
flounce, etc.] Catrou conjectures, from this, that Rubeta had already 
in embryo, or floating about in a seminal state in the generative organs 
of his brain, the immortal Letter on Animal Magnetism since emitted. 
But this is chronologically impossible. It may be the Life of Brant 
which he was about to spawn, and on the generation of which he was 
already bestowing his maternal cares ; for we have seen, by a preceding 
note, that at the time of the emission of Matthias, the prolific parent 
announced itself as heavy with another frog. — Dousa, however, con- 
siders it as only a general allusion to the eggs of future shoals, with 
which the parental brain was conscious of abounding, and of whose 
vivacious properties, when once ejected in the public stream, there was 
every reason to form high expectations, from the miraculous floundering 
of preceding fries of the same family. We are inclined to think with 
the learned Dutchman. ** 

Might not the hero allude to his " Visit," which no doubt he was then conceiving, 
even if he had not already brooded on it long before he set out for Montreal ? Cor- 
rector. 

256. — and tvas burned to ashes.] Those who give an allegorical in- 
terpretation to the scene in Hell, (basing their opinion on the fact that 
Matthias was at this time still living, and, having shaved off" his beard. 



CANTO THIRD. 157 



Therewith Hell^fire, and Sin, and Moloch cook, 
All vanish'd, as to one from slumber shook. — 



wherein lay the spirit of prophecy, was pursuing his primitive occupa- 
tion of a carpenter,) say that this end denotes the foregone conclusion 
of Matthias's preaching, to wit, his return to his original insignifi- 
cance ; into which the prophet plunged, the instant his Memoir by Ru- 
BETA was superseded, 

" Swift as a bullfrog to his native plashes." * * 

258. All vanished, as to one from slumber shook.] Says Scioppius, in 
the same spirit with his observations on v. 205, Rubeta tells one lie 
to his mates and another to his playmates. The irreverent critic did 
not consider, that the first is but an allegorical mode of speaking usual 
with men of Rubeta's exalted poetical genius ; and as for the latter, 
who, that is so happy as to have read the Letter to Dr. Brigbam, but will 
believe that the hero, who tells us (v. 230) that he was carried into Hell 
entranced, might witness without difficulty the scene he has described ? 
a scene which, I have no doubt myself, were Matthias actually dead, 
would be perfectly realized. We have only to regret, that the descent 
to Hell should have preceded in point of time the immortal visit to 
Providence, as otherwise we could bring indubitable evidence of its 
typical reality; since, by only being magnetized, Rubeta, according to 
his own account, (See his Lett, on Jin. Magji.) might as easily see Hell 
and its dependencies, as look out of his window on Columbia's freshmen. 
Why he has not yet done it in public, and thus gratified a universal and 
undying curiosity, we know not, but we may naturally expect that the 
infernal voyage will soon be made ; in anticipation of which event we 
beg leave to offer our congratulations to the six-and-twenty States of 
the Union, and to every portion of the habitable globe to which the 
sweet savour of Rubeta's wisdom may have diffused itself. It will be 
such a satisfaction for a man to know what has become of the soul of 
his grandfather ! * * 

The Editor forgets that these magnetic voyages are made through the air, a way of 
travelling to which Rubeta repeatedly assures us he is well accustomed, (see Letter 
&e.,) but how he could reach the gates of Pandemonium by this transparent railway 
is not easily seen 5 though, doubtless, the hero is as perfect in profound sinking, as at 
sailing in the clouds. We hope, however, with the philosophic Editor, that the ex- 
periment will soon be made, if only for the satisfaction of Professors Brigham and 
Wayland, and of other gentlemen of science and magnetic affinities ; or at least 
that Rubeta will give us a peep into the Limbo of Vanity, which he might do, we 
should think, any day, without going to Providence, or playing turrauches with Miss 
Loraina. Corr. 



240 



158 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

'T is a Strange tale, and women well may stare 

I would avouch it ; but I never swear. 

Whate'er you think, or that I lie or dream, 

Don't take me for the simpleton I seem : 

Credulity by no means kills the sense ; 

It only shuts it unto mere pretence : 

Thus, at my beck, Suspicion's jaundice flees, 245 

And any man 's a scoundrel when 1 please. 

Ver. 239. 'T is a strange tale, and women tvell may stare :] Isaac 
Vossius thinks they might stare from another cause; (see verse 263;) 
ScALiGER says from both ; adding, the effect of either were enough, of 
both must have been irresistible. * * 

240. / would avouch it ; but I never swear.] As we have remarked 
before, the pious scrupulosity of Rubeta is only matched by that of Drt- 
den's Fox.* See the concluding observation of our note at v. 205. * * 

241, 242. Whate'er you think, or that I lie or dream, — DonH take me 
for the simpleton I seem .] This is not said, as some suppose, in anger ; 
the hero is above so earthly an emotion. He probably fancied, that he 
saw an expression of doubt upon the quizzical visage of Fretille, or 
of some one of the novices, and the pride of a high character, conscious 
of its own superiority, was for a moment hurt, as on a preceding occa- 
sion (v. 122) : therefore, he proceeds to tell them, that his eyesight is as 
good as theirs (v. 243) ; that, supposing him to be credulous, it is only 
to barefaced pretension, which may deceive the wisest, (v. 244) ; but that 
he is sharp enough where nobody else would suspect any thing ; and 
therewith he proceeds to give them an illustration, v. 245, 246. * * 

245. Thus, at my heck. Suspicion's jaundice flees,] " Visit to Montreal," 
« Lett on Magn.," &c. 

246. And any man 's a scoundrel when I please.'] See for one example, 
in the N. Y. Comm, Adv., f those abominable remarks, so gratuitously 
introduced, I about "a recent catastrophe said to have been brought to 
light in the domestic affairs " of a certain popular author, (whose name 

* See the passage quoted at v. 112. Corr. 

t N. Y. Comm. Adv.'] I have not the date of the paper. The remarks of the Ed. 
Comm. follow a " Communication " signed " An American/' and commencing thus : 
" For the Commercial Advertiser. The disparaging style in which Mr. Brooks, in one 
of his late letters, has spoken of Mr." 

X — gratuitously introduced.'] The subject which ushered in these remarks, had 



CANTO THIRD. 159 

Oh ! had the bard, who sung of Heav'n and Hell, 
Foreseen the lies and scandal I should sell, 

the editor of that journal has the audacity to mention in full,) — "namely, 
his elopement with another man's wife, &c. &c." The gallant Colonel, 

{An honest man he is, and hates the slime 

That sticks on filthy deeds,) * 
concludes thus : " The intelligence was contained in a letter recently 
received from England, and may not be true." May not be true ! Good 
God ! how can any man, that affects the name of Christian, venture thus 
to befoul his neighbour's character on mere hearsay ! We forgot ; the 
Colonel is an old woman. " But," he proceeds to say, " there is noth- 
ing in the character of the man to make it doubtful."! Whether the 
report be true or not, I should like to know what business it is of the Edi- 
tor of the Commercial's ? Had I the dressing of this slanderer, I would 
clap a petticoat upon him, that his gender, at least in appearance, might 
no longer be equivocal. 

One or two other instances will be shown in the course of the poem, 
where this miserable, wicked fool, has spit his venom quite as wantonly, 
and, the crime alleged being lust, with particular satisfaction. At 
present, it will be sufficient to add his attack upon a well-known diplomatic 
character, ivhile the latter was abroad upon his mission ; (a man's back 
is sometimes saved by distance.) The particulars are as follows: — 
A disgraceful letter having been ascribed to Mr. , the Ameri- 
can ambassador at the court of , the Editor of the N. Y. Comm. 

nothing to do with them j but this pious slanderer, who deems it as good an act to 
blast a character, as to propagate foolery and play pushpin with a hussy, has his envi- 
ous head teeming with his plot of defamation, and therefore hastens the delivery on 
the first occasion, preparing us for it, in the true spirit of malice, by telling us he is 
glad to be instrumental in making known any circumstance creditable to one whose 

genius he so much applauds as he does that of Mr. / (Doubtless, the latter 

part of the " Remark," (given above,) makes known a circumstance very creditable to 
&c.) The whole article so perfectly developes the true nature of this person's disposi- 
tion, that we should copy it entire, could we soil our paper with what, setting aside its 
dastardly littleness, we deem as unchristian villainy as any in the pages of Carlisle, 
of fire-and-hangman notoriety. 

* Othello of lago. A. v. Sc. 2. — There are plenty of lagos in the world j men, 
however, of so noble nature, that they do not do the thing for hate, nor yet for money, 
but, of a charitable mercy and religious zeal, wake suspicion in confiding bosoms, and 
trip the foot of happiness, for they know that to be comfortable in this world is to be 
miserable in the next ; and Wliat profit is it to a man ifi he gain the whole world and 
lose his soul 7 * * 

t lago to the life. 

''I KNOW NOT IF 'T BE TRUE J 

But I, for mere suspicion in that kind, 

Will do, as if for surety." A. i. Sc. 3. adfinem. ♦* 



160 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

The Devil in vain had squat at ear of Eve, 
He 'd found a hero greater far, believe ; 250 

Where now some graver lyre, to my vexation, 
Shall sound my honors to the Yankee nation. 

Adv. seized upon it directly, and propagated the slander, after, it would 
seem, it had been refuted by the very paper in which it first appeared ! 
For thus writes the minister, in a letter published under his signature, 
and the date of Dec. 31, 1836, in the N. Y. American ; 

" I have read, I confess, with surprise and indignation, the article containing the 
attack on me by the Editor of the Commercial 5 aggravated, if possible, by the fact, 
that it is a repetition of a former one, of like character. I need hardly say that the 
whole affair, from beginning to end, is a sheer fabrication, and wholly destitute of 
truth." ***** " Imagine my surprise at so avanton and barefaced a 
CALUMNY, and that too, fas appears from the article itself) after a denial by 
the Editors of the Globe that the letter was written by myself." * * *. 
" You are authorized then, my dear Sir, in pronouncing on my authority, here or 
elsewhere, the whole charge false and calumnious, without the slightest 
JUSTIFICATION FOR IT, either in misconstruction or misinformation." *******. 
"Upon what authority, and with what motives he has made his charge, I 
leave the public to judge. Of one thing, I am quite certain, that if such conduct is 
not reprobated by the liberal and enlightened men of all parties, it can have no other 
effect than to humble our country at home and disparage it abroad." 

I am in possession of another instance, which partakes still more that 
character, of wilful malice and direct falsehood, Avhich gives a venom 
to the otherwise impotent journal of this silly, but by no means inof- 
fensive creature, and which / will add to the list, when the time comes 
that I can vouch it by my name. 

In conclusion, let me add, what is less clearly expressed in the text, 
this MORAL TRUTH : that credulity and suspicion go hand in hand, and 
the man who is ready to yield belief to extravagance, mysticism, and folly, 
will ever be found among the first to vilify his neighbour, and to hunt out 
the occasion of aspersion where it does not fall in his way. The reason- 
ing of the proposition is evident, — therefore unnecessary ; the proofs — 
you have in the Letter on An. Magnetism, and in the daily sheet of the 
N. Y. Commercial Advertiser. 

We are astonished at the Author's speaking so seriously of such a matter. Good 
Heaven! and is there then no difference between Rubeta — RUBETA ! — and 
any other man ? 

Is 't not ridiculous and nonsense, 
A saint should be a slave to conscience ; 
That ought to be above such fancies, 
As far as above ordinances ? 

Hudibras, Pt. ii. Canto ii. 247. 



CANTO THIRD. 161 

But, since I left, how flown the soft-wing'd Hours ? 

Two minutes distant. — Minutes P By the Powr's 

Whose cause I serve, two months methought were 

fled, 255 

Since these bold eyes outstar'd the astonish'd dead ! — 

Ver. 254, 255. — By the Poivr's — Whose cause I serve — ] Dulness, 
Obscurity, &:.c. &c. Servius. 

Hypocrisy, Falsehood, and other like divinities, undoubtedly. Scali- 

GER. 

Above, RuBETA says he never SAvears. The words are scarcely cold 
before he contradicts himself! — He proves however one thing by it : 
that he is a famous hand at invention. Anon. 

A man of cool temperament, whose passions are under habitual self- 
control, may be yet so taken by surprise as to forget for a moment the 
reasonableness he has daily taught himself for years. Such a man 
cannot be called inconsistent, much less false, or hypocriticaL He is 
the same individual, but under unusual excitement : a summer's sky, or 
a tolerably clean pavement, under a passing gust. A remarkable 
instance is presented in the divine Letter we have so often mentioned, 
where, carried away by the magnetic fervor, the hero declares, as we 
have shown in another place, (v. 170,) that if the proofs of Loraina's 
omniscience and mental ubiquity be rejected, we must reject the miracles 
of revelation : a blasphemy which could only be tolerated in a man of 
Rubeta's acknowledged piety.* 

255, 256. — two mouths methought ivere fied, — Since these hold eyes out- 
star'd the astonish'd dead ! — ] This is a touch above Don Quixote. 

* We subjoin the entire passage, as it is to be found on p. 59 of the 1st ed. of the 
Lett, on An. Magn. 

"Again, there are those who fear to believe, lest an argument shall [should] be 
derived from the admitted existence of the magnetic influence, against the miracles 
sustaining the divine origin of the Christian religion ; whereas, in my apprehension, 
the very reverse is the fact 3 since, if tesiimomj like that to which I have referred, 
is to be rejected, where are we to look for the proof of those very miracles ? " 

This, and the passage where he compares himself to St. Sebastian, (see note to 
V. 628, 629,) are, we repeat, by no means to be regarded as blasphemous, but of the 
enthusiastic nature of Laurentius Valla's declaration, that he hadarroivs in his 
quiver against Christ himself! Great men, and men of known piety, '' evangelical 
Christians " I would say, are, it cannot be too often iterated, never to be weighed 
on the same coarse steelyard where you and I, and such other dog's-meat, are 
suspended. * * 

21 



162 THE VISIOiN OF RUBETA. 

Ladies ! the charm has work'd ; the trial 's o'er ! 
Virgins ye are, as pure as ever bore. 

I said, and cut a caper, two yards high. 
But for the vault, had bor'd iny native sky. 260 

" A esta sazon dijo el primo : Yo no se, seiTor Don Quijote, como vuesa 
merced en tan poco espacio de tiempo como ha que esta alia bajo, 
haya visto tantas cosas y hablado y respondido tanto. ^ Cuanto ha que 
baje ? pregunto Don Quijote. Poco mas de una hora, respondio 
Sancho. Eso no puede ser, replico Don Quijote, porque alia me ano- 
checio y amanecio, y torno a anochecer y a amanecer tres veces, de 
modo que a mi cuenta tres dias he estado en aquellas partes remotas y 
escondidas a la vista nuestra. Verdad debe de decir mi seuor, dijo 
Sancho, que como todas las cosas que le han sucedido son por encanta- 
mento, quiza lo que a nosotros nos parece una hora debe de parecer 
alia tres dias con sus noclies. Asi sera, respondio Don Quijote. 
Don Q. Tomo iii. cap. 23. De las admirables cosas que el extre- 
mado Don Q. conto que habia visto en la profunda cueva de Montesi- 
nos, etc." * * 

256. — the astonish'd dead! — ] A virulent old critic, whom we have 
previously cited, exclaims very profanely: How the devil could the 
dead see him? If his own eyes had not been closed by prejudice, the 
irreverent German would have seen, that the hero is speaking of the 
departed spirits with whom he had been conversing, and calls them dead 
in reference to the world. * * 

257. — the "harm has ivork^d — ] This expression goes to confirm 
our explanation of the phrase " mystic cane," in Canto ii. (v. 215.) By 
supposing the hero to have made his journey to the shades astride this 
rod, (a supposition which does not conflict at all with his own declara- 
tion, that he travelled there entranced,) or to have used it as his proto- 
type ^Eneas the golden bough on a similar occasion, we facilitate our 
credit in this wonderful narration, which, if there be any faith in animal 
magnetism, (see our note to v. 258,) we believe to be strictly true. * * 

259, 260. — and cut a caper, two yards high, — But for the vault, had 
hor^d my native sky.] Sublime exaggeration ! Might we not say, with 
LoNGiNus,* that another such leap would have brought him on the back- 
side of the world ? * * 

* Speaking of the leap which Homer assigns to Juno's steeds, (7Z. v. T70-772,) 
the master of the sublime, in a fine burst of admiration, inquires : Who is there 
therefore that would not justly exclaim, impressed ivith the surpassi7ig greatness of 
this conception, that, if the immortal steeds should make a second like effort, tlie world 



CANTO THIRD. 163 

Then first I felt my loins grow rough with cold ; 
When sliding back my hand, in fright, behold 
Once more my braces ruptur'd ! or by strain, 
Down the steep ladd'r, and heaving up again, 
(Unnotic'd in my joy to resalute the train,) 265 

Or of that high croupade. This fir'd to view, 
Fretille with sacred ardor downward drew. 
O'er my broad shoulders, half the woven thread. 
And, hanging it about her neck, thus said : — 

Come, sacred web ! dear relic, though unstable ! 270 
Thou, that once brac'd a saint's unmentionable ! 
Clasp this fond neck : not faithless without cause ; 
For Morn shall see thee patch Fretille's old draw'rs. 

Ver. 259. — and cut a caper — ] Perrault finds this transport of 
Rubeta's unworthy. A man less philosophical might indeed blush to ex- 
press with such alacrity his joy at the nuns' virginity. But Aristippus 
was not ashamed to shake a leg in a purple dress, saying, that not even 
in the orgies of Bacchus did the modest soul part with her mtegrity. 
Vide DioG. Laert. in vita Aristippi: ed. Genev. 1615. p. 140. 

260. — my native sky.-\ We liere find the sky considered even by 
himself the proper region of this ethereal being. This passage, and 
the similar assertions in his famous Letter,* corroborate each other. 
Hence, many will have it, that the hero was magnetized previously to 
his expedition to the East. We may see nothing to contradict this 
opinion: on the contrary, we believe the versatile Rubeta to have been 
in a sort of somnolency ever since his birth, and in a state of somnam- 
bulism, somniloquism, somnoscribism, and somnocogitism, ever since he 
dropped the petticoat. Happy being ! whose fancies mount at will the 
coursers of the cherubim, and whose legs throw back the surges of the 

clouds 1 ** , -11 f 

not faithless without cause ;] That is, not without the will ot 



272. 



would want space for it? (T.'s oZv oh^ &v cIkotc., 6ca rhv h^tg(io\hv rov ^^eyiOov, 

TdTTov;) De Sub. Sec. ix. * * 
* See a passage quoted in the note to v. 273. 



164 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

And now, unloos'd, dread things had been display'd, 
Wherefrom e'en Doolan's self had tum'd dismay'd, 

Heaven, as and the reason follows. But some interpret it as con- 
veying a sly insinuation, that Fretille had stitched them badly together 
on the first disrupture, for the very purpose of appropriating them as in 
the text : and thereupon they conjecture that Fretille's caution^n that 
occasion {consult Canto ii. 596), arose from the consciousness of the 
artifice she was using. The interpretation is very plausible as far as 
the present subject is concerned ; but the conjecture is entirely gratui- 
tous. * * 

273. For Morn shall see thee patch Fbetille's old dravPrs.l Few pic- 
tures can be more touching than that of this great man, surrounded 
by the gentle sisterhood, submitting so readily to all their little whims 
and wishes : 

How meek, how patient, the mild creature lies ! 
What softness in its melancholy face, 
What dumb complaining innocence appears ! 

(Thomson's Summer^ 413.) 
Not Gulliver, encompassed by the Lilliputians, was half so fine an 
image of submissive power, nor yet Rubeta's own great self, when 
playing patty-cake with Miss Loraina, or when, hand in hand with that 
" dignified young lady," and toe to toe, he moved up and down with 
her, gracefully subsilient, or fluctuating, so to speak, to imitate the lovely 
motion of two amorous doves when flying, as his own soft pen has so 
touchingly and voluptuously described in that transcendent emanation, 
whose title we cannot too frequently repeat, the Letter to Dr. Brigham 
on Jlnimal Magnetism. But we must quote the precious passage for 
the delectation, admiration, and information, of all lovers of the sublime 
and beautiful : — 

She " repeated her desire to go through the air, I assured her that I would as 
gladly accompany her that way as any other. ' But you must not let me fall/ said 
she. ' O no/ I replied. ' I am used to that way of travelling,* and will bear you up 
in perfect safety.' Saying which, she grasped my right hand more firmly, — took my 
left hand, — and pressed upon both, tremulously, as if buoying herself up. I raised my 
hands some ten or twelve inches, re/-r/ s/oio/?/, favoring the idea that she was ascend- 
ing.' [What/M«.'] ' You must keep me up/ she said, with a slight convulsive, or 
rather shuddering grasp, as though apprehensive of a fall. ' Certainly/ I replied, 

* Like the Socrates of comedy. 

Strep. U^mtov (i\v o t» Jpaj, avTjgoXtS, H-xniTri [i<ji. 
SOCB. 'AEjoSaToi 

Aristoph. Nub. 224, 225. Brunck. 



CANTO THIRD. 165 

Had not the lov'd of Philomeda's grace 276 

Rush'd to my side, with supplicating face. 

O let, O let me pin it up ! — she cry'd ; 

With trembling joy one yellow hand apply'd. 

My under-weed and woollen band betwixt, sso 

Grasp'd tight the twain, and soon the bastion fixt. 



' you need have no fear. / am used to these excursions.' And away, in imagina- 
tion, we sailed." (p. 20.) 

Let US draw a veil over the too enchanting picture of the toying 
turtles. * * 

274. — unloosed, dread things had been displayed,] We are astonished 
that so respectable an annotator as Ru^us should explain this, with 
the ancient Scholiast, in a manner little agreeable to the modesty of such 
a speaker as our hero, and quote, as an analogous passage, a verse (519) 
from Canto i., equally misunderstood: 

" And as to save you serves my own great end." * * 

It is probable, that the hero refers to the tail of his shirt, his " under-weed," as 
he calls it below, and to his account with the washerwoman. See Canto ii. 635. Coi-r. 

274-276. And now, unloosed, dread things, etc.] A mode of speaking 
common with the ancient epic poets, and here paraphrased from Mii-- 
ton's imitation: 

and now great deeds 

Had been achiev'd, whereof all Hell had rung, 
Had not the snaky sorceress that sat 
Fast by Hell gate, and kept the fatal key, 
Ris'n, and with hideous outcry rush'd between. 

Par. Lost, ii. 722-726. 

276. — the lov^d of Philomeda's grace] Read: of Philomeida's grace ; 
and understand by the circumlocution, Putain ; whom he has previous- 
ly called a votary of the same goddess. [Canto ii. 543-549.) Philomei- 
da, or Philomeidk, an epithet of Venus with Homer : <piXofjt,fjt.itlhs 'A(p^o- 
yiTti, laughter-loving Venus ; the ^ reduplicative, metri gratia. Philo- 
meda is another name of the same divinity, given to her, according to 
Hesiod, [Theog. 200,) from the accident of her birth, on f^vihiuv ili(pa,av6yi; 
though one would think that a simpler reason might have been assigned 
for so charming a title. * * 



166 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Soft ! soft ! — I scream'd, — Take time ; don't work 

so hard : 
That broad cloth cost me thirty dimes per yard ! 

This post secur'd, the well-intention'd nun 
My sliver'd sleeve would teach reknit in one. 285 
Not so, (I urg'd,) dear saint, whose cheek discloses 
More charms than daffodils, or spring's white roses, 
(Pure, fadeless tint Rubeta loveth most. 
Next the deep grain Sietta's houries boast,) 
Not so ; no foul dishonor at that end 
Spots my chemise, or needs abash my friend. 



Ver. 282. Soft! soft! — 1 scream'd, — Take time — ] Nannius will 
have it that this was said with a wish to keep the soft hand longer 
nigh him, probably to warm the shivering part. This is not so : for 
though the hero is fond of women's hands, as the Abbess said, [Canto i. 
463,) and did make a journey to Providence for the very purpose of 
gratifying this delicate sense, yet, be it observed, it is only in the cause 
of science. He explains, himself, the reason of the entreaty. * * 

282, 283. Soft ! soft ! — / scream\i, etc. That broadcloth cost me thirty 
dimes per yard /] 

Fate pian, grida Bosio: ajuto, ajuto: 
Non stracciate, che ''1 saio e di velluto. — 

Tassoni. Seech. Rap. Canto 7°, 25. 

288, 289. Pure, fadeless tint Rubeta loveth most. — JVext the deep grain 
Sietta's houries boast,] "Ne savez-vous pas," as said the Dauphin to 
the Countess Du Rourre, " ne savez-vous pas, madame, que les gouts 
sont differens ? L'un aime la brune, et I'autre la blonde ; et par ce 
moyen chacune trouve a se loger." Bussi: Hist. ^m. des Gaules: 
Tome 3me. (p. 419. ed. 1829.) Thus translated by the connoisseur Ru- 
beta : — "a colored woman, if well washed, would be just as clean as 
a washed white woman." — [Jin. Magn. 1st ed. p. 32.) * * 

289, — Sjetta — ] One of the provinces of Angola, in possession 
of the Portuguese ; here put of course for the whole kingdom. * * 

290, 291. — no foul dishonor at that end — Spots my chemise — ] The 



CANTO THIRD. 167 

There let the white shift flutter, broad and free, 
Banner at once, and pomp, of victory ! 

I spake. Well pleas'd, the maidens smile assent, 
For the thought tallies with their own intent ; 295 
Which BoiTEUSE thus reveaPd : — Come, sisters all ; 
Bear the lov'd hero back into the hall ; 
In triumph bear, and (Haste ! the vault grows misty,) 
Sing Jubilate, and Ancilla Christi, 

Do as ye list ! — I cry'd, exulting, — Do ! 300 

Ancilla prope sum magisquam you. 

Scholiast takes this in a sense at once figurative and literal, hinging its 

explanation upon a preceding passage : 

. . thy shirt-tail seen, 

Scanty indeed, and not exceeding clean: 

(The nuns to Rub. Canto ii. 631 :) 

that is, hinging mistake upon mistake. The phrase is entirely meta- 
phorical, and the sense, that that end of his shirt is not, by custom, 
held indecent. * * 

The Editor's opinion would go to contradict the opinion we have ventured to 
advance at v. 27-i : but we are inclined to think, with the Scholiast, that the expres- 
sion is " at once figurative and literal." Corr. 

292. — shift — ] " Shift," says Servius, either because the hero 
was actually in use of his wife's linen, or as denoting either the body 
or mind of the wearer, as one whom female dress became, notha mulier ; 
the Poet, undoubtedly, considering him what is vulgarly called an old 
woman. Explanation worthy of so mere a grammarian. * * 

299. _ « Ancilla Christiy] The first words of what is sung at the 
taking of the veil; I am the handmaid of Chsjst, etc. The meaning 
therefore is : Our innocence is proved (see v. 258) ; let us then sing, 
as we did when we took the vow to keep it. * * 

301. ''Ancilla prop^ sum magisquam''—] Scioppius, Salmasius, 
Bayle, chuckles famously at this queer Latin ; even the grave Heyne, and 
the excellent Bouhours, have each his laugh ; and the Scholiast, while he 
calls it the Latin of Babelmandel, and says it corroborates the interpre- 
tation of Servius above (v. 292), has no doubt of its genuineness, and 



168 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Loud laugh'd, delighted with my parts, the fair, 
And the glad triumph thus, with pomp, prepare : — 

Four lovely nymphs, the tallest of the band. 
Poize, level with the hip, my sire's dread wand, 305 
More potent than the rod shrewd Israel set 
Before dull Laban's ewes, or, mightier yet, 
Which gave th' Idaean bastard Hell to spy. 
On th' outside only, not explore as I. 
Four nymphs. At either end were stationed two : 3io 
CuLASSE, Tetasses, Bouffie, and Charnue. 
O'er this, (familiar saddle, — scanty-wide,) 
Seven nuns slow-heaving set my bulk astride. 
Behind, Pucelle, soft pillow, keeps me tight ; 
And Phlebotemna props me on the right. 3i5 

About my neck twelve turnips, strung, were plac'd ; 
A mouse, in prison pent, my fingers grac'd, 
Brave Doolan's gift; scarce perilous to hold, — 
Long since found captur'd, shrivell'd, stiff, and cold. 
Then on my cheeks they rubb'd a sanguine dye, 320 
Scrap'd from a pot of minium standing by. 

tells us, RuBETA borrows the lovely tongue of Horace, in order to show 
the nuns he knew as much as they ! for, adds this equitable interpreter, 
the hero was stung with envy to find the sisters conned their prayers 
in Dutch. Shame on them all ! Can the man who quotes Cicero by 
mouthfulls at a dinner, be so ignorant as to speak such stuff, or so pe- 
dantic as to wish to parade a knowledge familiar to him as a crust of 
bread ! I should as soon pronounce him ignorant of Hebrew. The text 
must be adulterated. But how to restore it I know not. * * 

308. — th' IdcBan bastard — ] ^neas. * * 

320, 321. Then on my cheeks^ etc.] Some have regarded this part of 



CANTO THIRD. 169 

Monk's book of lies, like slave at chariot-wheel, 
By a long cord hung dragging at niy heel. 

Clystera (now return'd) here stripp'd my head : 
This hat shall bear the spoils, — the maiden said, 325 
My modest forehead crowning, in its place, 
With the moist honors of the pewter vase ; 
Weighty withal, as w^ell as dripping dew ; 
For who a crown will bear, must feel it too. 
But the false beaver, burden'd with its store 330 

Promiscuous, gather'd from the wall and floor, 
Old shoes, hard mortar, turnips, stones, and wood, 
Discharg'd it all ! Aghast th' unspotted stood, 
And, mournful, view'd my honors shed around. 
Then snatch'd the trophy-bearer from the ground, 335 
And clapp'd it on her head : the loosen'd crown, 
Hing'd at one edge, went bobbing up and down. 

The phalanx moves :— first, Boiteuse, proudly 
bearing. 
High on a twig, which clasp'd their sinuous paring, 
Two huge potatoes, demi-peel'd : her next, 340 

The brine-purg'd jar their twined arms betwixt, 
Carotte and Leucorrhea : then Fretille ! 
Around her neck the biform braces still : 



the decoration as effeminate, and equally unworthy of the hero and of 
the grateful sisterhood. They forgot that the Roman generals were 
similarly adorned in their triumphs : a fact which no doubt the nuns 
were well aware of. * * 
22 



170 THE VISION OF RUBETA, 

(Proudly thou stepp'st, fair vestal !) : her behind, 
PuTAiN, my coat-tail waving to the w^ind, 345 

And ever trilling, as she tripp'd along. 
In Chastity's lov'd praise, some holy song. 
But not the less, next sequent of the train. 
Serin and Plainchant woke a nobler strain. 
Through the long cloister, loud, yet shrill it rung ; 35o 
And this the hymn these owls of beauty sung : — 

Lo ! on the rod his sire's broad haunches press'd, 
RuBETA comes, our Mother's ass confess'd ! 
Who smote the jars ? Who bade the legion flee ? 
Explor'd the cave of lumber ? Who but he ? 355 
See his rent sleeve, his hat-crown beaten through, 
His coat-tail ravish'd, and his braces too ! 
As clasp to book, as lid to closet-seat. 
As broom to kennel, kennel to the street, 
So he to us ; but lovelier still than they. 360 

Crawl out, ye vermin ! greet him on his way. 

Ver. 360, 351. Through the long cloister^ etc.] 

Through the high lattice far yet sweet they rung, 
And these the notes his bird of beauty sung, — 

Byron. Corsair ; Canto i. 14. 

353. — Mother — ] Mother Superior, or Abbess : Mere Supliiture. 
Serv. in loc. 

354. — the legion — ] Of murine devils. Id. 

358-360. Jls clasp to book, as lid to closet-seat, — Jls Iroom to kennely 
kennel to the street, — So he to us — ] 

Vitis ut arboribus decori est, ut vitibus uvse, 
Ut gregibus tauri, segetes ut pinguibus arvis ; 

Tu dec us omne tuis. 

ViRG. Daphnis, 32. 



CANTO THIRD. 171 

Lo ! on the rod his sire's broad haunches press'd, 
RuBETA comes, our Mother's ass confess'd ! 

Then, Mother's ass ! full swells the choral song ; 
Ass ! DooLAN, — Ass ! the echoes mild prolong. 365 

Who follows next ? Ah, well I know her mein, 
Crown'd with the dancing beaver, graceful queen ! 
Then, on our charger, we ; above us borne, 
In regal state, a bended osier, torn 
From the huge barr'l our prowess overthrew. 370 

This, drap'd with cobwebs, held Belette, Bossue. 
Nor songless our own pipe. We told how Heaven 
Into our hands the apostles' pow'r had given : 
Hence Chemos fall'n ; hence loos'd the mesh of sin. 
Though fenc'd with stave of oak thrice girdled in. 375 

Ver. 360. — but lovelier still than they.] 

Formosi pecoris custos, formosior ipse. lb. 44. 

372, 373. - We told how Hbaven — hito our hands the apostles' poiv'r 
had given :] It is upon this line in particular that the zealous Hardou- 
iN supports his argument, that Rubeta is no other than St. Paul : an 
identity which certainly is not so wonderful as that of JEneas with the 
Saviour, or of the dulce loque7is Lalage with the Christian religion. 
We should, however, endeavour to show that it is impossible, despite the 
stroncr metaphorical similarity which we confess does exist (let us not 
be thought to speak irreverently, though we are not in orders) between 
the nuns and the tottering churches which the great Cilician endeav- 
oured to sustain in their proper position ; but we are saved the task of 
refutation by the illustrious subject himself, who we understand is about 
to prove to the world, in a forthcoming publication, that he himself is 
that very apostle ! as he has already established the fact of his being 
St. Sebastian (see note to verse 628, 629) ; and therefore the idea of 
the learned Jesuit, that this grand poem is a compilation by the monks 
of a past age, must fall to the ground, and carry with it all its fanciful 
superstructure. See the Chron. Prolus. 15th Vol. 37th chap. Providence 
edition, * * 



172 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Pat, look on me, (I sang,) and upright walk. 
The same was written on my back in chalk. 

Then came the barrel, dragg'd by sisters three, 
Chlorosis, Hydropique, red Bourgeonee. 
Then NoiRCEiL, Grisceil, waving each a stave, 380 
Surmounted with a Jordan of the cave. 

Ver. 375, 376. Pat, look on me, (/ sang,) and upright walk, etc.] Pat, 
you see how uncomfortable I sit : use your own legs, my boy. Vd. 
Schol. 

Look at me, and never let anybody persuade you to ride. Lipsius. 

Absurdly, and ignorantly. The sense is better given (for a wonder) 
by Servids :— Pat, only see once what a fine thing it is to be pious; 
always keep in the path of uprightness, my good fellow. But Nonnius 
refers the sense to Pat's imprudent aflfection for whiskey, bewailed by 
RuBETA in a former line, and thus interprets the passage : — Pat, you 
see how straight I sit, even here : imitate me, and don't make any more 
snake-fences. 

Be the meaning as it may, there is a striking coincidence between 
this part of the text and the story told of Sethos, king of Egypt and 
priest of Vulcan, who, in commemoration of a victory achieved in his 
favor over Sennacherib, by means of an army of mice, which, directed 
by Heaven, rendered the weapons of his enemies useless, was repre- 
sented in sculpture with a mouse in his hand, and an epigraph teaching 
the moral of his fortune as the reward of piety : — 

Ka/ vwv oZrai o (ixffiXivs 'iffrrtKi iv rco i^eo rod 'll(pxi(rrov Xl6ivos, 'ix"^ '*'^* ''^f 
vj/gof fiUVf \iyuv ^ik y^tt,fjt,fji,a.ruv recoi 

E2 EME TI2 'OPEHN, EX2EBH2 E2Tfl. 

Herod, ii. 141. 

* # 

381. — of the cave.] Found in the lumber-vault. Vet. Schol. Lip- 
less, or otherwise broken. Id. 

Both : see v. 21. Indeed, the Venet. edd. of 1497, 1499, etc. have: 

rearing on a stave 

A lipless Jordan, gathered from the cave. 

One edition only, the elegant impression of the elder Grtphius, 1543, 
has: 

A chamber-chalice borrowed from the cave. * * 



CANTO THIRD. 173 

Lastly, the nymphs of minor note appear. 
A carboy in each hand, Pat slopes the rear. 

As the heap'd clouds, their work of mercy done. 
Roll, pile on pile, before the emerging sun ; 385 

As in a calm the dull sea's lengthen'd swell ; 
Or, on a summer's eve, when winds are still. 
Gently the curling billows lave the shore, 
Then slow retire ; nor harsh their gather'd roar : 
With such dark pomp, majestically slow, 390 

Through the long aisle the solemn sisters flow. 
But groan'd Culasse, and writh'd her Flemish 
haunch : — 
Would smaller puddings stuff'd that graceful paunch ! 
— Delighted still to bear thee, (Bouffie sighs) ; 
But, Mystic Rose ! who ever felt such thighs ! 395 

O inurm'ring subjects ! think ye then, indeed, 
Your chief rides easy on this sharp-back'd steed ? 
But what is pain to glory ? (I reply'd :) 
What chafing to Rubeta's martial pride. 
Dear to this heart, as sunshine to the day? — 4oo 
Yet, bear me gently, — lest the pins give way. 

And now, before the pensive Mother come, 
Bless'd by the priest which chatter'd on her thumb, 
(The holy pair, by flying courier warn'd, 
To do me grace that hour the hall adorn 'd,) 405 

Ver. 396. — MrsTic Boss I — ] One of the sacred titles adapted from 
Scripture, by the Romish Church, to the mother of the Redeemer. * * 



174 TFIE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Back fell the van, the rein'd-in courser stay'd, 
And the chief stood amid his host displaj'd. 

Then rose the hawk-bilPd queen, whose marriage- 
bed 
In nuptial bow'r of Heav'n alone is spread, 
And bowing thrice, (whereat I rais'd my crown, 4io 
And, gracious, three times wav'd it up and down,) 
Hail son ! — she cry'd, — return'd from parlous fight, 
Deck'd with thy laurels as becomes a knight. 
Blest, who dar'st fathom any jakes profound, 
Nor fear'st a host of turnips under ground ! — 415 
More had she said ; but Bouffie, sad to tell ! 
Here slipp'd her hold, and down Rubeta fell. 

O, such a vary'd clamor as then rose ! 
See, PuTAiN, see ! thy pins desert his hose ! 
And pray'd green Richards, and each virgin 
hand, 420 

Ver. 412. — parlous — ] Considered by Junius a corruption of peril- 
ous ; and rightly, says Johnson. The Abbess, therefore, or Rubeta for 
her, would seem rather to restore the word to its primitive sense, than to 
strain the expression. Though some commentators maintain that it is 
here used in the vulgar sense, to denote an enterprise which had tasked 
the wits of our hero still more than his courage. But some copies read 
perilous, and not a few perilous. The latter reading is a cacophonous 
barbarism, unworthy equally of the gravity of the Poem, and of the 
exalted rank of the speaker. * * 
414, 415. Blest, who dar^st, etc.] 

Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere caussas ; 
Atque metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum, 

Subjecit pedibus, 

ViRG. Georg. ii. 490. 



CANTO THIRD. 175 

Or Strove to lift me up, or hoist my band. 
But shriek'd the Mother's fife 'bove all their pitches: — 
Daughters, for shame ! let go the hero's breeches ! 
Hither, Fretille : Pucelle, don't pinch his 

thighs : ^ 

Crown him once more, and help the saint to rise. 425 
I have two garters, each a yard in length ; 
White are they not, yet of exceeding strength ; 
These, wed in one, may gird a waist so small, 
And keep immur'd, what else might shame us all. 

She said, and, gently whipping up her train, 430 
Slid back her hand, and straight undid the twain. 

Ver. 425. Croion him once more — ] Rubeta has not mentioned the 
loss of his tiara ; but it is easy to imagine that so heavy a headpiece 
would hardly keep its gravity where its wearer could not his. * * 

430,431. She said, and, gently whipping up her train, — Slid hack her 
hand, and straight undid the twain.] All the critics, commentators, and 
translators, are in raptures with this trait of modesty in the Abbess. 
Madame Dacier says, that it is an evidence at once of the high rank 
and gentle breeding of the party, so that, were we not told expressly 
it was the Mother Superior who did the act of charity, we should know 
her hand by the very fact of her putting it behind her. A remark in 
which we coincide most cordially ; for, if you will walk the streets 
during church-hours on Sunday, you will see many a sturdy servingmaid, 
whose stockings threaten a descent, stop before a door, cock up her leg 
upon the third step, and, turning up her coats in front, arrange the 
matter without regard to your blushes, and be long enough about it to 
give you time to cast a problem in the Mensuration of Solids : there- 
fore the backward motion, the suddenness, the grace of the action, mark 
at once the lady, and the " lady superior." * * 

There is one thing, however, which seems to have escaped the Editor. Rubeta's 
practical knowledge in all things pertaining to the fair was certainly to be dreaded by 
one, who, being " past age," might not possess that roundness of contour which is 
said to delight the eyes of connoisseurs. Con: 



176 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

These took Fketille, and coupled them, still warm, 
With facile fingers girt my pliant form, 
Then help'd me rise, and whisper'd (angel sweet !), — 
There wanted this ; now. Saint, thou art complete. 435 

On foot, my charger leading in the hand. 
Before the Abbess, then, I took my stand. 
Mother, (I said,) his grateful labors through, 
Lo, your bruis'd son now waits to bid adieu. 
Witness the tears, which rain from these sad eyes, 440 
Forc'd by no common fate your w^alls he flies ! 
Too happy, could he but his stay prolong. 
And pray with thee, and Richards, all night long* 
Ye too, dear maids, who, wedded to the Lord, 
Scorn the lewd pastime nuptial rites afford, 445 

Farewell ! — thrice blest ; for whom no seas by steam 
Are plough'd ; with whom the drowsy brain may 

dream. 
O were I but a maid ; O had this face, 
This double chin, no excrement to rase ; 



Ver. 440. — the tears, which rain from these sad eyes,] A sensibility 
greatly to be admired in our hero, (as we think we have shown before,) 
and which has its parallels in the heroes of Homer. So does ^jseas 
weep on a similar, though very inferior occasion: 

Hos ego digrediens lacrymis affabar obortis, etc. 

Mn. iii. 492. * * 
446, 447. — for whom no seas by steam — Jire ploughed; with whom 
the drowsy brain may dream.] 

Vobis parta quies : nullum maris ©quor arandum. lb. 495. 
448. O were I but a maid — ] Cerdanus explains it into a regret 



CANTO THIRD. 



m 



To Chastity I 'd dedicate my hair, 450 

And consecrate my life to pills and pray'r. 

Then should ye call me Sister, then these hips 

No raveird brace should tantalize in slips, 

But petticoats adorn my virgin thighs, 

And a black cap add lustre to my eyes. 455 

O life of ease ! O joys to fancy dear! 

And shall Rubeta never know ye near ? 

Ah ! might the soul unbar her cage at will, 

Then should his spirit mingle with you still, 

of Rubeta that he is married. The learned Spaniard forgot that the 
hero, as he is an epitome of all the virtues, cannot be deficient in conju- 
gal attachment. The author of the Priapeia has another interpretation 
even less tolerable. The simplest meaning is undoubtedly the true one ; 
namely : O ivere I not a man : a sense immediately confirmed, where, m 
the subsequent line, explaining at once and extending the idea, he says, 
O had I not a beard. * * 

454. — virgin thighs,] As henceforth dedicate to Chastity. Ursinus, 
PoNTANUS, Tan. Faber, &c., Slc. - Virgin here signifies the nature 
and character so to speak, of the hero's limbs, after induing the sacred 
vesture of a nun. Mad. Dacier. — We think, improperly. But the point 
is so doubtful, that we leave it to the reader to decide. Gruterus 
translates it ivhite, soft, polished, such as suit a maid. Our own opinion 
is, that Rubeta means to denote the shrinking bashfulness of those 
parts, or perhaps their blushes and confusion at the nature of the in- 
vestment: an opinion directly backed by the beautiful MS. lately dis- 
covered in the library at Passamaquoddy, which reads modest, and 
perhaps by Muretus, who, T am told, quoting in an unpublished book 
this very passage, writes, from I know not what text. 

The petticoat would grace my blushing thighs. 
458. M ! might the soul unbar her cage at will,] A power said to have 
been possessed by Aristeas of Proconnesus: 

Hes^ch. IUus. dt quorund. Sapient, libell. (Extat ad calcem Diog. Laert. 
edit. Casaub.) 

The expression of the wish in the text would seem to have been 
23 



178 THE VISION OF IIUBETA. 

Despise for you the bovver on College-green, 460 

Couch in your laps, and doze w^ith you unseen. 
Meanwhile this clay, these fingers should remain, 
And do his jobs at home, vs^hich need no brain. 
This were a life ! this, this were to be blest ! 
But this — No more ! my tears supply the rest. 465 
And must thou go ? — the pensive Mother sigh'd, — 
Thou lov'd of maids ! my own dear joy ! my pride ! 
Cruel ! Ah, had I been indulg'd one kiss. 
One chaste impress of that pure mouth on this, 

anticipative of the hero's subsequent conversion to animal magnetism. 
By the by, would it not be a proper subject of inquiry for the magnetic 
doctors of the learned city of Providence, whether the Proconnesian 
poet employed the same means, (the kneading of the belly, etc.) 
which plumed the ubiquitous spirit of Loraina, and made it fit company 
for the feathered soul of Rubeta, "used to that mode of travelling"? 
We suggest the proposition in all humility. Solomon has said that 
there is nothing new under the sun ; and science is interested in tracing 
all inventions to their true original. Might not the seven-league boots of 
the Polyphemic Fee-fo-fum have been a magnetic apparatus, whose con- 
trivance is now unhappily lost to the world, — unless happily a Capron 
should restore it ? * * 

46C. — the hower on College-green,] Not, as the author of the Pick- 
wick Club has it, " one of those sweet retreats, which humane men erect 
for the accommodation of spiders," but the identical study in the identi- 
cal house wherein the miraculous Brackett, after being twice told 
(pp. 28, 29, of An. Magn.) its precise locality, exclaimed so wonderfully, 
'< It would be so sweet to sit and look out of those windows on the 
green " (p. 33) ; the bower, in fine, of which the hero said to his sister 
spirit, " This is my den — my literary workshop — where I can shut my- 
self up, and be as secluded as I please. I built it on purpose." (p. 39.) ] 

468 -470. — Jih, had 1 been indulged one kiss, — One, etc. etc.] 
Saltem, si qua mihi de te suscepta fuisset 
Ante fugam soboles ; si quis mihi parvulus aula 
Luderet ^Eneas, qui te tamen ore referret ; 
Non equidem omnino capta ac deserta viderer. 

^n.iv. 327-330. 



CANTO THIRD. 179 



470 



Not wholly then deserted should I be ! 
Yet go where Glory calls thee ; mind not me. 
Go ! and when beauteous eyes repose on thine, 
As Eden's figtree forms thy theme divine, 
And, in the smiles of simpering dames around, 
Thou read'st their wish to press the seat of sound, 475 
Then think on me. Adieu! O God! adieu! 
I bed with Richards, but my heart 's with you. 
Then PuTAiN sigh'd, — I shall not sleep to-night ! 

Nor I, — sobb'd BoiTEUSE, — by this blessed light! 

Nor I ! nor I ! — in chorus chim'd the rest. 480 

Green Father Richards equal cares confest. 

Forth burst Clystera : - Stay ! before you move, 

Accept these tokens of your handmaid's love ; 

Ver. m. 0,u chaste impress of that ,mre mouth on this,] ^e oughtto 
Jn i n to the reader, that the beautyof the hero's mouth, wh.ch is fully 
desc^rbed in Canto iv., is something remarkable. Hence, perhaps, the 
abbe s' strong desire here, and in Canto i., to touch .t; for women, 
fver-paTag'e," are never insens.ble to great comeliness m men. My 
own wife, (as will be seen in Canto iv.,) was so overcome by th.s prodi- 
gious feature, that I had great difficulty in keeping her in dec^ent bounds. 

4,3. As Eden's /g(ree /onn. thy theme dimne,] At his lectures, of 
which of course the Mother had been informed by the voice of Fame as 
we on our side of the border hear of the speeches of Sotheriakd. See 

^ MTght n!f the siltlrs have been listening to the hero's soliloquy (Can- 
to ii. 498), and have reported it to the Lady Superior ? Corr 

47,. 1 bed with R.CB...S, hut my heart 's with you.] Here follow, in the 
„ore ancient editions, some twenty verses, showing how the abbess ad- 
" d the hero (advice too fatally neglected!) before he should visit 
LuHO, to consult the prophetess Loba.na, with an obscure description 
of the sibyl's residence, and an intimation of one Dr. CAPo^. 



180 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

(Extending, as she spoke, with earnest tone, 

A goat's drj'd bladder and a pipe of bone) : 485 

Take these, — she said; — and when, distent with beans, 

Thy gusty bowels writhe in travail-pains, 

Embrace the plenish'd sack ; its warm tears shed, 

In jets, will give thee comfort, in my stead. 

Too happy pipe ! thrice happy bladder too ! 490 

Would, would my hand might go along with you ! 

The rest brought unguent, balsam, wash, and pill, 
And with the treasure every pocket fill. 
And has thy father's saddle made thee sore. 
Rub on this salve ; the groin shall fret no more. 495 
Rub on this salve, (each urg'd,) and think on me. 
Thunder'd the Friar, — Semper vsrgine I 

Nor this was all : the very vase they stor'd 
With nostrums chosen from their chemic hoard. 
These since are gone, for various sorts of gripes, soo 
The vase I would have truck'd for Connor's types. 
Connor declin'd. I planted stonecrop then ; 
And the pot grac'd an air-hole of my den. 



Ver. 497 . Thundered the Friar, — " Semper vergin e / " ] From which mis- 
conception of sound, we gather the interesting- but afflictive fact, that the 
reverend personage M^as somewhat advanced in years and hard of hearing. 

However, the grateful epitheton, with which the Father facetiously tips 
the nuns' too modest me, is from his recollection of the tail of a monastic 
prayer : " Beata Maria semper vergine intercedente." * * 

501. Connor — ] The principal typefounder in Manhattan. * * 

602. — 1 planted stonecrop then ;'\ Why stonecrop 1 JVon liquet. ** 

603. —den.] "Den," "private den," "literary workshop," are pet 
names for the little piggery, we mean " snuggery,^'' into which the hero 



CANTO TFilRD. 181 

Nor in like court'sies did your chieftain fail. 
My hat, (he said,) my braces, eke my tail, 505 

I leave with you; Fretille's, Clystera's, those; 
PuTAiN enjoys the last : and God he knows, 
Could I go naked, I would leave my breeches ! 
But take this volume of my Tales and Sketches^ 
Which, for my solace, everywhere I carry. 5io 

'T is dirty, you will find ; but witty, — very ! 
So the fam'd spring, where fanguid Fashion drinks. 
Gives health and tone, and sparkles, though it stinks. 

led the modest and guileless Loraina, when " wrapped in insensible 
slumber so profound that the discharge of a park of artillery would not 
disturb her." See Lett, on An. Magn. pp. 38, 39, 1st ed. ; or the note to 
V. 460. 

" By the by," says Mr. Dickens,* "we scarcely ever knew a man who 
never read or wrote either, who hadn't got some small back parlor 
which he would call a study :" and we, too, scarcely ever knew a man 
who scribbled shilling pamphlets, or wrote scandal for a newspaper, that 
had not some back-closet which, in facetious imitation of a great man's 
affected humility, he would call his den or workshop. A remark, howev- 
er, which we would not for the world apply to the erudite Rubeta. 

# # 

609. — this volume, etc.] See note to v. 520, 521. * * 

511. — willy, — very ! ] Rubeta's very just impression of his own ex- 
traordinary facetiousness we have already seen in Canto ii. 388-390. 

512. — the fam'd spring, ivhere languid Fashion diinks,] At Saratoga, 
in the State of New York ? * * 

611 - 513. 'T is dirty you will find ; hut witty, — very ! — So the fam'd 
spring, etc.] The hero's modesty is, in this place, rather too self-depre- 
ciating. We, for our part, really consider the delicacy and almost effem- 
inate refinement of the " Tales and Sketches " even greater than their wit. 

* In those very clever sketches of vulgar life, the Post. Papers of the Pk. Club, (pt. 
iv. p. 18. Phil.) 



182 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

And thou, too, Richards ! bird of parlous beak ! 

Nibble this peanut for Rubeta's sake. 5i5 

'T is the last left, of half a pint or more, 

Bought when, departing from Manhattan's shore, 

I beat the porter down, despite his fence. 

And sav'd three coppers out of eighteen pence. 

Let the reader taste the following delicious cut from the tender-loin, 
and judge for himself: — 

" ' I '11 be blamed, if you 'd seen Jim Fairbanks storm a hen-roost to- 
night, as I done, you 'd laughed ready to split.' 

" ' Yes, I guess you would,' added another ; ' when he slipped off the 
ladder into the cow-pen.' 

" ' Hold your tongue. Bill Conkling,' replied the soldier who had en- 
countered the misfortune ; ' if you don't leave off poking fun at me, I '11 
smash you into a cocked-up-hat, I tell ye.' 

" ' O don't,' said another ; ' for he 's dreadful handsome, and if you 
dew it, there 's Molly Butterfield will cry like blazes.' " 

Then a speaker proceeds to tell, how one Joe Miller " was jumping 
over " some " burs," when " an old critter catched him by the waistband 
of his breeches, and shook him like a dog would a black snake, a pretty 
considerable time. But the string 'gin way, and Joe he fell smack 
into the mud, as if heaven and 'arth were coming together." Then 
Joe enters " in a sorrowful pickle sure enough," — "holding up his trow- 
sers ; " and the dialogue is renewed. 

" 'Then you found the old man a raal sneezer, Joe,' inquired the 
worthy lieutenant in command. 

" ' I '11 be darn'd if I didn't,' replied Joe ; '■ and I '11 be shaved into 
a meat-axe, if I aint up to him for it yet, some day or other.' " 
Myst. Bridal, {Tales and Sk. Such, (fee. vol. ii. pp. 102, 103.) 

The astonished reader will not find it easy to believe, that one man 
could be the sole author of such transcendent wit and elegant humor, 
wit and humor so sustained ; but I assure him we could fill twenty or 
thirty pages with such delicacies, from the same volumes, if not from the 
self-same story of the " Mysterious Bridal." We refer him therefore to 
the work itself, which will repay, over and over, for the cost of the two 
volumes, him, and his heirs and assigns, to the fifteenth generation. * * 

518, 519. / beat the porter down, despite his fence, — And sav^d three 
coppers out of eighteen pence,] Very absurdly condemned, by some of 
the commentators, as an act of meanness. Now we uphold, that genius 



CANTO THIRD. 183 

Take it, my son ! kind Heaven it sav'd for thee, 52o 
Deep in this pocket, and deny'd to me. 
And shall I not one token, too, select ? — 
Peace, Friar, peace ! 't is done in all respect. 

I said, and pluck'd, six digits from his waistcoat, 
One plume, the flamen screaming, Requiescat ! 525 
Then, gathering up Monk's book, to take the place 
Of my own Tales^ unworthy such a grace. 
The vase beneath my wing, — Fruits of my toil, 
These roots I '11 carry home with me to boil, — 

is no way better displayed than in driving a bargain, especially with a 
poor man. This being granted, it follows, that the more nearly you 
drive the bargain, the greater is the force of intellect displayed. There- 
fore, to make a common porter take fifteen pence when his lawful fare is 
eighteen, and this, too, notwithstanding all his skill in parrying, (" de- 
spite his fence,") is a most glorious achievement of the intellect, worthy 
of the antagonist of Monk and the immortal expounder of animal mag- 
netism. Ci!e. D. ** 

520, 521. —kind Heaven it sav'd for thee, — Deep in this pocket, and deny'd 
to me.] It certainly would seem to be a most signal interposition of 
Providence, that this solitary nut should remain buried in an obscure 
corner of his pocket, escape his frequent and long exploring, (which we 
gather from the phrase " deny'd to me,") and now only brought to light 
when, as we suppose, he drew out the immortal volume of his master- 
piece. St. Augustine. 

An interposition doubly visible, since what was to prevent the nuns' 
selecting this individual skirt (we presume it was the pocket of his upper 
garment) to tear away, instead of the other ? * * 

625 — Requiescat! ] i. e. Lei it be ! — The modest circumlocution by 
which the hero expresses the parrot's rump, in the preceding line, can- 
not be too much admired. * * 

526, 527. Then, gathering up Monk's hook, to take the place —Of my own 
Tales, unworthy such a grace,] An amphibology ; Scaliger says, wil- 
ful on the part of the Poet. * * 

529. roots — ] Not the medicinal preparations in the Jordan, as 

Servius absurdly supposes, but the esculent vegetables which, it may be 
remembered, were pendant from his neck. * * 



184 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

I said : — Once more, dear saints, — Fretille ! — 
adieu ! 530 

Soon shall the press give brave accounts of you. 
Not such as, in her after-dinner doze, 
Dame Irving ravels from her worn-out hose ; 

Ver. 532. — after-dinner c/oze,] " Non bonus somnus est de prandio," says 
the Scholiast, quoting from Plautus, {Mostell. A. 3. Sc. ii. v. 8.) ; seeming 
thereby to intimate, that the old lady ravelled her stockings when she 
was asleep. But the Poet writes, precisely, doze ; which is a state nei- 
ther waking nor sleeping. Therefore understand it, ravelled drowsily^ 
heavily, languidly ; or better, as more applicable to the particular stock- 
ings in question, ravelled at a time when she could do nothing more use- 
ful. * * 

532, 533. JVot such OS, in her after-dinner doze, — Dame Irving ravels 
from her ivorn-out hose, etc.] See the Crayon Miscellany everywhere, 
but especially the volume which talks something or other about Sir 
Walter Scott and about Newstead Abbey. How in the name of 
wonder, though, Rubeta should contrive to fall upon this truth, is better 
known to himself than to his readers, as will be seen anon (Canto iv.). 
It may, however, have been in the moment of inspiration which the 
success of his enterprise, and his exkltation by the nuns, had given him> 
or through the suggestions of envy, which makes up in private for any 
adulation it may pay a great name in public. Anon. 

We are surprised at this observation ; since to us it is very manifest, 
that Rubeta was quite able to discover a fact which is so gross a child 
might feel it blindfold ; only his amiability, like that of all his brethren 
from one end of the United States to the other, makes him loath to say 
any thing publicly again-5t the literary merits of a popular literary char- 
acter. However, see v. 708 of the 4th Canto, which is the passage 
"Anon." would appear to refer to. ** 

632-535. JVot such as, etc. — Which we the toion for bran-new ivorsted 
buy, — And quote as extra-fine, yet know not why;] See the more re- 
cent publications of that distinguished author. According to the French 
Theophrastus, " II n'est pas si ais6 de se faire un nom par un ouvrage 
parfait, que d'en faire valoir un mediocre par le nom qu'on s'est d^ja 
acquis." (Chap. 1".) 

This, I have no doubt, will be the first time that Mr. Irving has heard 
the truth since he rose to eminence ; (such being a consequence of 
greatness, even where more the result of accident than of merit ; ) and 
that we may not be thought to speak it only in a spirit of invidiousness, 
it becomes us to show that we are not the last of his admirers ; al- 



CANTO THIRD. 185 

Which we the town for bran-new worsted buy, 
And quote as extra-fine, yet know not why ; 535 

though we are not so young as to grow passionate in his praises, nor so 
old as to slabber him with unmeaning slaver. Mr. Irving's distinguish- 
ing excellence, then, is good taste ; a merit in composition not the com- 
monest in this day. He never attempts to soar where it is his business 
to keep upon the ground, nor to burst into flame where coolness is 
more desirable. Then, he has a quiet and delightful humor that is 
found in but few writers besides himself, and those entirely, I believe, 
of a past age. Subjects which would be vulgar in the hand of almost any 
other man become pictures for a cabinet in his : such, for instance, as 
where the little dog (in Bracehridge Hall) is painted with his tail twisted 
so tight as to lift him up from his hind legs. It is in these representa- 
tions, in minute and accurate drawings of the minor details of com- 
mon life, that Mr. Irving shows himself most truly a ma^/er ; (we are 
using the word with deliberation, be it observed, and not as a sixpenny 
reviewer.) What the best pictures of the Flemish and Dutch schools 
are to the art of painting, such are Geoffrey Crayon's writings to the 
productions of the pen in general. (Of this kind of excellence the latest 
example he has furnished, that we know of, is a little piece published in 
one of the annuals, and entitled The Creole Village.) But here Mr. Irving's 
praises must end. He is never great ; he has no fire ; he never tells you 
any thing that is new to you, (I mean to the most ordinary readers : to 
the scholar and the philosopher nothing in any writer is absolutely new, 
where the only variety one can introduce is in the mode of expressing 
what has been said again and again before him, and shall be said again 
and again years after he is dead.) As the author of the Sketch Book 
began, so he continues, and so will end. His Reflections in West- 
minster Abbey, etc., were those which may be found in your youngest 
son's youngest composition ; though rarely will your eldest son be able, 
with long study and years of polishing, to tell them half so well. And 
this being the case, it were well if Mr. Irving retired from the field^ 
and hung his trophies o'er his garden gate.* But the desire of still keep- 
ing before the public, and, we nearly added, the love of money-making, 
are stronger even than the caution which is, I should judge, a part of his 
character ; and those who really admire this excellent writer, (and they 
are not those who flatter him most,) these, I say, must regret to see him 

* Pope's parody of Horace : 

Our gen'rals now, retir'd to their estates, 

Hang their old trophies o'er the garden gates. EpisL i. 7. 

24 



186 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

But something novel, something men may spell. 
Once more, O virgins, oh ! — a last — Farewell ! 

dawdling in such books as the Crayon Miscellany, or playing the old 
man prematurely in the wire-drawn wordiness of an Astoria. Not even 
Washington Irving can beat furs into eloquence. * 

To conclude : whatever the author of the Sketch Book has done, no- 
body else could do so well ; but it is absurd, and where the exaggera- 
tion comes from men who should know better, disgraceful, as it is surely 
prejudicial to the interests of true taste, to elevate David Teniers or 
a Gerard Duow into a Raphael or a Buonaruoti. f 

* The style of this book, however, cannot be too much commended, if you look 
merely to the arrangement of words and the construction of sentences. There are 
passages in it which reminded me noi unfrequenlly of Herodotus. Those who 
know what Dion, of Halicarnassus says of the Father of History, will think this no 
small compliment; and if Washington Irving himself knew how much we love 
the chronicle of the nine muses, he would know, that this article is written by one who 
is not to be held the enemy of his fame because he does not make an idol of him. 

fAs the head of the Florentine school is known to be the Dante of painting, and as 
the leader of the Roman may, with equal propriety, be termed the Virgil of the same 
art, (I am not sure but Mr. Roscoe has termed him so already,) it would scarcely be 
credited, out of the U. States, that any man of sense should have been guilty of such 
adulation towards Mr. Irving as to justify our parallel; but here, it must be well 
known, that not merely the stupid newspaper-press, but even the quarterly reviewers, 
not content with giving Mr. Irving all the praise he really merits, (no small allowance,) 
have invented for him qualifications which he not only never dreamed of possessing, 
but which would be totally incompatible with the talents he really does enjoy (a). So 
much is extravagance the character of the age we live in. 

Great genius never stoops to the embellishment of trifles : it seizes only the grander 
features of nature, the stronger passions of humanity. (We state this as a well-known 
fact, not as a precept.) He whose Titan spirit covers with a living canopy the Sistine 
chapel, and stands three hundred times repeated on its populous walls, could not take 
three days to paint a broomstick. 

Note. There are some honest persons who will believe us, when we add, that we 
feel sorry to be obliged to tell Mr. Irving to his face what the next century will say 
of him : but a principal object of our work could not be well effected without it. It 
were useless to clear the eye of smaller motes, if the biggest one of all be left behind. 

(a) Yet what is there remarkable in this, when Wordsworth, the sonnetteer and ballad- 
maker, whose fancy sports with butterflies, and grows pathetic on the struggles of a dying 
lamb, when prosing, unmanly Wordsworth, has been paralleled with Milton (1), and is 
frequently pronounced, by what is deemed ample authority, the greatest poet of his day ! a 

(1) See Blackwood's Mag. for Aug., 1822, (No. 67,) : or, for that matter, see Wordsworth 
himself, in the most astonishing production (after the Letter on An. Magn., and the Intro- 
duction toD'IsRAELi's Tale of Alroy) we ever read, — the Pref. to his Lyr. Ballads, — where 
he has laughably run a parallel between himself and Milton, — Milton ! whose "natural 
port \% gigantic loftiness,^^ and who leaves even Homer behind him in his flight to Heaven. 



CANTO THIRD. 187 

Away, away, I shot with speed of light, 
Left maids and mother in a woful plight : 

Ver. 636. But something novels something men may spell.] Less than the 
truth ; for the perfect originality of the whole paper (the " Visit, &c.") 
was never surpassed, save by the unsurpassable, — the Letter on An. 
Magnetism. 

However, the reader is not to feel surprise at this great man's com- 
paring himself with Mr. Washington Irving, since he has more recent- 
ly put himself on the same bench with a name infinitely superior, — that 
of the late Sir Walter Scott : — ■ 

" N. Y. Comm. Adv. Wedn. Evg. June 14, 1837. — Authors and Editors. — We 
should hold ourselves much indebted to any body, who would give us a clear and au- 
thentic explanation of what is now-a-days understood by the word editing. It seems 
o have acquired a meaning very distinct from that which was attached to it several 
years ago, when we picked up our literary notions, such as they are : " {Such as they 
are, — a favorite phrase of modest self-depreciation, which this great man toill affect, as 
we have seen in the title of his Tales ^•'c] " Then we understood what was meant, 
when we saw it stated that the best edition of Swift or Dryden was that edited by 
Walter Scott — or that Captain Riley's Narrative was edited by Anthony Bleeker — or 
Captain Morrell's by our old friend Samuel Woodworth. In the case of Dryden, tor 
instance, we were enabled to comprehend that the task of the editor consisted in — " 
&c., " and perhaps in the expurgation of expressions that were tolerated in the time of 
Dryden, but which would prove offensive to the more fastidious delicacy of a later 
generation," etc. etc. etc. " Of editing such as this ive can perceive the propriety, and 
the object, and the usefulness, — and we have done some of it in our -dky, per- 
haps in cases of lohich nobody entertains a suspicion." [Wonderful man! why will 
you keep your light eternally under a bushel ? ] 

Let not this self-parallel with the genius of Scott be deemed either 
vanity or presumption on the part of Rubeta, but a noble confidence, 
which, setting a just value on his own merits, leads him thus to.compare 
himself only with the greatest. * * 

day which has seen the energetic spirit of a Byron, the chastened elegance and close pol- 
ish of a Campbell, the gayety and splendor of a Moore, and the chivalrous fire ol'a Scott ! 
The cause is the same in both cases, — the reliance which is placed upon the dicta of reviews 
and magazines, and the diversion of criticism from its proper channel into empty declama- 
tion. When the day returns, as return it must by the mere revolution of fashion, when 
critics shall deem themselves obliged to give a reason for their opinions, under penalty of 
seeing them disregarded, — a day when Johnson shall be no more decried, and Longinus 
shall cease to be forgotten -, when that day shall come, — Washington Irving will assume 
his proper stand, as the neatest and purest writer of his day, and William Wordsworth, 
descending below the lowest of the mighty names his ignorance and presumption durst dis- 
honor (2), take his lawful place, a respectable seat in the fourth rank of British poets. 

(2) See " Appendix," where the Author has given a running comment on Wordsworth's 
Prefaces, (the same comment which is alluded to in the " Advertisement.") ** 



188 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

I heard their shrill hysterics, at the gate. 540 

Poor nymphs ! your Chief was in as sad a state : 
The fount of grief, discharging all its stores, 
Ran down his leg and madefy'd his draw'rs. 

Now when the roosters, horologes true. 
For the third time had struck their Doodle-doo, 545 

Ver. 537. Once more, etc.] The beautiful Elzevir has the line printed 
thus : — 

Once more — O virgins ! — oh! — a last — Fare ... . well ! 
a typographical refinement quite unnecessary, as any reader, possessed 
of common feelings, would understand at once that the hero's heart was 
all but breaking, and read of course in a voice broken by sobs, rising 
in the second oh ! to an absolute groan. * "* 

540. — their shrill hysterics — ] Giraldi chooses to assert, (see his 
Dialogues on the Poets,) that the hero mistook both the cause and kind 
of laughter ! Some men will not see the nose before their face, till it is 
pulled for them. * * 

642, 543. The fount of grief , discharging all its stores, — Ran down his leg 
and madefy'd his drawers.] The author of that very ingenious posthu- 
mous work on the Ancient Lacrymatories, (now out of print,) after prov- 
ing by raathematic demonstration, that it would be easy for any wo- 
man of ordinary moisture to rain at one shower, without the assistance 
of an onion, a sufficient depth of tears to fill half a dozen of such reposi- 
tories, brings forward, as a curious fact, the remarkable flood which hap- 
pened to the hero of the Vision ; whereupon his Editor has the imperti- 
nence to make this dry remark : — that if his lamented friend had but set 
down the time the hero had been in the convent, and added the inordi- 
nate quantity of tea which he had drunk at the refection, (see Canto ii. 
V. 25.), he would have found, as the sum total, that his grief was in his 
kidneys. * * 

544. — roosters — ] " Rooster," that which roosts ; an American term 
applied, par excellence, to the male birds of the gallinaceous order, but 
especially to those of the genus Gallus, whether the same be the Ban- 
tam rooster, or the Frizzled rooster, or the Rumpless rooster, or any 
other variety of roosters. As this is an appellative exclusiveness injuri- 
ous to our sex, forasmuch as the hen does certainly perform her part in 
roosting as well as her husband, I would propose to the Americans to 
say, masc. rooster, fern, roostress, as we write ambassador, ambassadress, 
fornicator, fornicatress. However, nobody in America says cock. 



CANTO THIRD. 189 

Aurora, quitting old Tithonus' bed, 
Donn'd her gray socks and under-garment red. 
And (clear'd the coals, with ashes cover'd o'er, 
Which Ph(Ebus had rak'd up the night before,) 
Kindled the fire which was to last all day. 550 

'T was 5 A. M., as honest merchants say, 
When from the isle I took my pensive way. 

Then Vulcan and the Naiads lend a hand, 
And set me down where fareless Jarvies stand. 

Therefore when you go there be careful never to use the word before 
females where it can be possibly avoided, unless you would have them 
swallow their handkerchiefs, but say. Ma'am, your pea-rooster wonH let 
me sleep; This house is much infested with 'roaches', Sir, the urn is next 
you, 1 HI thank you to turn the thing; etc. etc. I 'm told, that a gentle- 
man who was one day reading to a party of ladies, at the Springs, Sir 
W. Scott's romance of the Fortunes of Nigel, on coming to King 

Jamie's dish of cockyleekie made a full stop, and then read it out 

rooster-leekie, to the high gratification of the breathless party, and the 
relief of their circumambient brothers, who had determined to challenge 
him if he durst pronounce the odious word! Another instance of this 
remarkable refinement is that of a lady in the country, who, expectmg 
me to dine with her, and fearing I would say the word, ordered all the 
cocks in the farmyard to be whitewashed and their spurs chopped off, 
that I might take them for hens: a ruse which, as I am a very intelli- 
gent person, did not succeed; and accordingly I cried out, the moment 
I heard them crow, " God bless me, madam ! hear the hens there ; they 
are learning to be cocks ! " whereupon the lady fainted on the piazza, 
and was borne into the house insensible ! 

Trolloppe, De causis CorruptcR EloquentifB in AmericcB repuhlica, 

(Latin edition); Chapter, De Shirtihus, et Cockihus, et Buggibus: p. 63. 

552. __ isle — ] On which the city of Montreal is built, and from 

which according to Rubeta, who should know best, it derives its 

name. ^ , , , 

553, 554. Then Vulcan and the JVaiads lend a hand, - And set me down, 
etc.] In place of this couplet, there are found in the anc. edd. one hundred 
and fifty lines, describing how Rubeta, in pursuance of the Abbess's 



190 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

No delegation waited, as I thought, 555 

To pray to feast me, as the people ought ; 
(Which shows the town, now given up to trading, 
Has grown ungrateful : but I scorn upbraiding ;) 
So, stepping on the wharf without one sob, 
I minc'd alone amid th' admiring mob, 560 

Which shouted, as I wriggled through the press, 
Lord^ ivhat a lovely creatur^ I Clear the mess ! 
In the same room where copy'd Reni hung, 
On the same peg, the blessed rod now swung. 

advice, (see note to v. 477,) touched at the city which is called Provi- 
dence, in the State of Rhode Island ; and how he there had an inter- 
view with the prophetess, both being (as appears from the title of his 
pamphlet * ) "in a state of somnambulism " ; and how the modest and 
innocent Loraina, being rubbed on the belly by the great Capon, told 
him to seek another prophetess, residing in the gloomy quarter of the 
Five Points in the mighty city of Manhattan ; and how the hero 
steamed it to Manhattan; and how he saw the temple of the priestess 
of the Five Points, with many things remarkable therein ; and how he 
told the priestess who he was, and what he came for ; and how the 
swarthy priestess thereupon took a pack of cards, and, in the most won- 
derful manner, showed him how she knew every thing about him, and 
what was the object of his visit! and how, after many mystic rites, she 
gave the oracular response, JVbi to visit Bsuno's house until he should go 
there : the neglect of which advice produces the catastrophe that fol- 
lows. * * 

655, 556. JVb delegation ivaited — To pray to feast me — ] According 
to a classical usage most duly honored, like every thing classical, by 
the classical citizens of our classical republic. Vide Plaut. Amphit. i. 
Sc. 1. annot. in lin. 8. [ed. Gronov. Amstel. 1684.) 

663. In the same room where copy'd Reni hung,] See (can we ever 
quote it too often ?) the divine Letter on An. Magn., p. 43, which shows 

* '' Letter to Dr. A. Brigham, on An. Magn. : being an account of a remarkable 
interview between the author and Miss Loraina Brackett while in a state of somnam- 
bulism." * * 



CANTO THIRD. 191 

Untouch'd it shone, in Copal lustre drest, 565 

Bright as the wreath which props my father's crest, 



us how the little " den " in Church-street was hung with various pictures, 
and how the tender-hearted " clairvoyante " wept bitterly at beholding 
" an admirable copy of the Ecce Homo^ by Guido," and how she told all 
about the pictures, having been previously primed by the great Capon, 
who, as it appears from p. 41 of the same Letter, had been told about 
these pictures by the hero himself a few days before. All of which, is 
it not " miraculous " ? and is it not written down in the Letter aforesaid, 
which may be had of all the sons of Wynkyn, for the small gratuity of 
twenty-five cents ? * * 

564. — the blessed rod — ] An expression by no means to be laugh- 
ed at ; for a man of Rubeta's transcendent faculties may see a mira- 
cle in a broomstick, and find astounding what ordinary people regard as 
child's play, or farcical imposture : thus, in his paper of Sept. 4, 1837, 
in which he announced to the awe-struck world the prodigious discovery 
of the omnipotence and absolute immateriality of the human faculties, 
he says : 

" We have had our time and times of laughing at animal magnetism. We shall 
laugh at it no more. There is something awfully mysterious in the 

PRINCIPLE; BEYOND THE POWER OF MAN TO FATHOM OR EXPLAIN. Being in 

Providence on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, the 26th, 27th, and 28th of August, an 
opportunity was offered us of seeing and taking part in a series of experiments with a 
young blind lady, while under the magnetic influence, the results of which loere not 
only marvellous in our et/es, but absolutely astounding." 

Truly may this great man, having, as we have seen, compared himself 
to Hamlet, whose " brains were zigzag," now parallel himself without 
offence to modesty with an African witch, where, at the close of the 
article from which we have quoted above, he observes: 

" In regard to our narration, it is alike wonderful and inexplicable. As Paulding's 
black witch in Koningsmarke says — 'I 'VE seen what I 've seen — I know 

WHAT I know.' " ** 

566. — my father^s crest,] "Those seals" (the "seven seals" with 
which he sealed up the " Eggs of Charity ") " were strong and deep 
impressions of my family crest, with the motto distinctly shown.'''' Lett, 
on Jin. Magn. p. 54. — Ill-nature and envy has induced some critics to 
assert, that this very Letter was published for the express purpose of 
letting people know that the author had pictures in his house, and a 
crest upon his seal ! What this crest was, (or if it were a crest at all,) 
has been much disputed, the more general opinion inclining to make it 
the same which belongs to the shield mentioned in Canto iv. (v. 472) ; 



192 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Till, on this eve, at Cato's w^arning call, 

I snatch'd the heirloom from the pictur'd wall, 

while others insist upon it, that this latter is but pure invention, and that 
the crest really belongs to his own well-earned achievement 

As it may gratify the two hundred and seventy thousand adorers of 
this magnificent personage, we inform them that, after very great re- 
search, having expedited at our own proper charges a messenger to the 
island of Java, we have discovered the original patent (with the subse- 
quent grants) of the arms of Rubeta, which translated, as nearly as 
possible, into the language of English heralds, is as follows : 

To all and singular, nobles, as well as private persons, to whom these presents 
shall come, Ham-Ham-Funk, otherwise Javan, King of Arms of all that part of 
the large and mighty kingdom of Bantam which lieth between the three rivers, 
sendeth greeting. For as much as from time immemorial, when the Sun was first 
created, and the Moon gave her light to beautify and render fruitful the ladies of 
the harem, whose eyes are like her own, the honorable deeds, and true glory of 
excellent persons, have been celebrated, and handed down to the veneration of 
posterity, by suitable monuments, whether the same have been deserved by valor 
or wisdom or exalted virtue, and among these monuments the chief has been the 
bearing of certain tokens in shields, vulgarly called arms, etc. etc., and being re- 
quired of RUBETA, of the island of Manhattan, Colonel, Orator, &c, «fec., and 
Defender of Virgins, to make search, in the registers and records of my office, 
what arms he the said Rubeta might bear without prejudice to any other person, 
and considering that the said Rubeta, Colonel, &c. &c., and Defender of Virgins, 
did, [Here follow the heads of his illustrious actions in the convent,'] and moreover 
that the said Rubeta, Col., &lc. and Defender of Virgins, is [Here, the setting 
forth of his right to roijal honors] &c. &c., I, the said Javan, King of Arms, by 
virtue of the power confided to me by letters patent under the Great Seal of Ban- 
tam, do assign unto him and his posterity, to the end of the Moon, the full achieve- 
ment of a royal personage, to wit : Saturn, an ass statant with a Imman face hooded 
and winged Luna, urinating Sol ; and in a chief Luna a man jiotele, habited in a 
nun's simar Saturn close-girt with a woman's garters of the third, sitting on a close- 
stool Jupiter, his left eye gutty Dragon's Tail, holding in his left hand a broomstick 
proper and in his right extended a mousetrap of the first. For Crest : An ass soli' 
ant on a matule * Jupiter, surjnonnted of a crown Sol, holding in his mouth Mars 
a ■pamphlet of the second. For Supporters : Two asses gardant and matuled Jupiter, 
gorged loilh a collar Sol, having a chain of turnips affixed proper refecting over the 
back and passing over the hinder quarters, both standing on a scroll inscribed icith this 
Motto (He turn'd him to the wall and quenched the flame) from vMch issue the two 
royal badges of the hero's chief names, to wit : on the dexter side a Sweet- William, 
stalked and leaved proper, and on the sinister side a Pebble Sol. In witness where- 
of, &c. HAM-HAM-FUNK, Javan, 

King of Arms. 

* I know not what this can be, unless it be a term derived from matula, and relating to 
the utensil wherewith the hero is honorably crowned in the procession. Matule, and 
matuled, are therefore new terms, hkepotcle, added to the noble jargon of heraldry by the 
progressive march of science. * * 



CANTO THIRD. 193 

And rush'd where Bruno hatch'd his nightly twaddle, 
Fix'd to destroy or turn his eggs all addle. 570 

However properly a royal achievement might belong to the hero, 
(not from the temporal elevation to which his peers had raised him on 
the night celebrated by the Poet, but by reason of the perpetual honors 
conferred upon him in that vision which forms the august subject of 
this solemn Poem and the glory of the 7th Canto,) his modesty induced 
him to decline it. Whereupon, application was made to the Fountam 
of Honor itself, the Majesty of Bantam : and the choice was given the 
hero, through the principal herald, of the two coats which follow, both 
being Arms of Concession. 

1. Emerald a corps de jupe, garni de baleine et rembourri, erected pearl, holding 
in each bosom-piece a globous pebble diamond, the entire tipper hemisphere tohereofxs 
seen naissant, and having paleways in the busk the Roman letters W. L. S. ruby : 
in a chief parted per pale, sapphire an ass rampant double-headed topaz urinating of 
the second, and diamond a parroquet close of the sixth respecting a newspaper 
proper. The Crest, Supporters, and Scroll, the same as in the royal achievement, 
allowing for the difference of blazon, and omitting, in the Crest, the crown. 

2 Quarterly: the first, argent an ass statant-gardant with a human face hooded 
andwino-ed azme, urinating vert 5 the second, or, on a cross flowery gnXen, between 
four mice saliant sable, a mousetrap proper; the third, or, on a fess sable, between 
three parroquets vert, an ass's head argent erased or, and bearing in his mouth of the 
same a pamphlet proper, betiveen two toads seiant or ; the fourth, argent, a man poteli 
in a nun's simar sable, close-girt with a woman s garters or, sitting on a close-stool 
azure his left eye gutty de sang, his head surmounted of a matule of the fourth, holding 
in his left hand a broomstick proper, and in his right extended a mousetrap of the 
second The whole within a bordure quarterly argent and or, charged with mice and 
toads alternate, represented and tincted as in the escutcheon. The Crest as above, and 
the Scroll thus inscribed: Psittaci^, mures, rana, asinus, matula, en ^^^ J^^ ■ 
This Coat being marshalled not for alliances or fiefs, but to denote the different 
illustrious actions of the hero, according to a custom at Surinam and Bantam, 
particularly honored by the female guard of his Batavian Majesty. 

Accordingly, the first, as being blazoned by precious stones,* his 
modesty persuading him to reject as unbecoming a republican, the hero 
was graciously pleased to accept of the second, which, consequently, 
we have caused to be depicted in a Frontispiece : and it is our opinion, 
that tlie " crest" of the « seven seals" was seen as is there represented. 

Kote. The armorist to whose care we owe the English blazon of these 

- Blazoning by planets and by precious stones, the former in the arms of sovereign 
princes and the like' the latter in those of noblemen, is a whim of the English heralds 
exclusively, which is worth noting, as showing the deference to rank in England 
where the grades in society are more distinctly marked, and maintained with greater 
jealousy, than in any other country that I know of. 

25 



194 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

It chanc'd the door-catch stood unsprung that night, 
And the hall-lantern burn'd with sickly light. 
Softly I enter'd, pois'd on sloping toe, 
And listen'd at the keyhole ; (right, you know, 
To reconnoitre all your foe's defences 575 

Ere your ramm'd cannon blaze upon his trenches.) 
There came a sound like yelping from within, 
And Bruno's bark rose hoarse above the din, 



Oriental coats-of-arms, supplies us with the following remark from 
PoRNT. [Elem. Her. p. 134.) " The ass, which is the lively emblem of 
Patience, is not without some good qualities, for, of all animals that are 
covered with hair, he is least subject to vermin, &c." This, in ordinary- 
cases, were well enough ; but our correspondent seems to have been 
unaware of the circumstances, so well known to our readers, from which 
the illustrious personage, whose arms are here blazoned, derives this 
bearing. The same hand adds the following emblematic significations 
of the tinctures in No. 2. First quarter: Urgent, or white, "consisteth 
of very much light, and is laudable, for that it is the messenger of 
peace, and releever of the disti-essed. * * * In morall vertues it signifieth 
Virginity, clear Conscience, and Charity ; * * * with Blue [azure), cour- 
teous and discreet ; * * * with Green {vert), vertuous in youth, to the 
continuance thereof." Second quarter: Or, or Gold, "of itself betoken- 
eth wisdom, riches, and elevation of mind ; with Red [gules], to spend 
his hloud [as a Colonel] for the riches and well-fare of his Countrey ; 
* # # ^jj.}^ Sable, most rich and constant in every thing, with an 
AMOROUS MIND." Third quarter : Sable signifies, " with Argent, 
famous or renowned; with Gold, Honour with long life.''^ Fourth quar- 
ter : Azure, " of itself signifieth divine contemplation * * * godliness of 
conversation ; with Argent, vigilant in service : * * it is attributed to 

CELESTIAL PERSONS, WHOSE CONTEMPLATIONS HAVE BEEN ABOUT 

DIVINE THINGS, which ivas the cause it was so much used about the gar- 
ments of the High Priests.''^ Stlv. Morgan's Sphere of Gentry, Lib. i. 
pp. 3, 4. * * 

571. It chanced, etc.] Here Rubeta, returning from his episode, 
takes up the thread of his apologetic story of disaster, where he had 
left it in Canto i. at v. 312. * * 



CANTO THIRD. 195 

And then my name, which must have follow'd Dunce ! 
I heard no more, but on the pack at once 580 

Pour'd in. What 's this (I cry'd) ye do ? 
Maria Monk ! and Fanny Partridge too ! 

Out stepp'd the flamen : — Com'st thou here to try 
Which of the two be stouter, thou or I ? — 
So fierce his tone, he made such ugly faces, 585 

God help me ! that I sprung back seven paces. 

Bruno, — I said, — I come not here to try 
Which of the two be stouter, thou or I. 
Fresh am I from the vaults of Hotel Dieu, 
This magic w^and (nay, have it well in view ; 59o 
'T is the same staff of which my paper speaks) 
Essay'd them all, with divers other freaks. 
Now, if yon Partridge be a bird of honor, 
She '11 suffer me to try my stick upon her. 

Therewith, to sound the vestal's situation, 595 

I tapp'd the seat of dropsies and gestation : 
When, strange to say ! fierce Bruno, in a passion, 
Struck down the staff in most uncivil fashion. 

Inkling of Horror ! not such thrill was thine. 
When rush'd the tom-cat down the flue to dine ; 600 



Ver. 599, 600. Inkling of Horror ! not such thrill luas thine — When rush'd the 
tom-cat down thejlue to dine ; ] See the marvellous story of an anthro- 
pophagite Grimalkin, which, to the imminent petrification of a young 
gentleman, rushed down a chimney, upset the fireboard, and, leaping on 
a bed, was about to make cat's-meat of a dead body which the youth was 
watching ; as may be read, under the title of a Tale of Horror (if our 



196 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Not such, mad Julian, quiver'd through thy breast, 
When Marg'ret's lips thy pale cold forehead prest. 
I would have felFd him ; but the man look'd big ; 
And his eyes flash'd blue lightning through his wig ; 
And was he not a priest? — 1 paus'd no more, 605 
Gather'd my stick, and headlong sought the door. 
Then rush'd the vixen Monk, then Partridge rush'd. 
Priest elbow'd priest, and brother brother push'd ; 
And Fool ! and Blockhead ! rattled in a show'r ; 
And Bruno's jaws stood open to devour. 6io 

I must have dy'd ; but Heav'n sent up the cook. 
Or some kind deity her likeness took, 
Who by the neckcloth drew me from their rage, 

memory does not trick us,) in that marvellous production called Inklings 
of Adventure, by N. P. Willis, Esq. 

If the above should offend the eye of Mr. Willis, he will find an excelltent collyr- 
ium in the subsequent Canto, where his real merits are properly distinguished. Mr- 
Willis is a tolerable poet ; but his poetry makes child's work of his prose. ** 

Ver.601, 602. JVot such, mad Julian, quivered through thy breast — When 
Mabg'ret's lips thy pale cold forehead prest] See the account of that 
prodigious kiss, which had the effect of stirring up sensation in the cere- 
bellum of a man who was sitting torpid as a tortoise in winter, and stupid 
as any Stone, somewhere in the second volume of the Confessions of a 
Poet, — a defunct infant, which, like many others, should never have 
been born, and whose obituary notice will be found in Canto 7. 

608. — bi'other — ] The affectionate term of address between such 
extra-pious people as formed the congregation at Bruno's on this mem- 
orable evening. * * 

612. Or some kind deity her likeness took,] The penetration of this 
acutest of men thus hit upon a fact which the kindness of the Muse alone 
has discovered to us ; for this seeming cook was indeed none other than 
the goddess Caution, whom we have seen, in Canto 1st, set out for the 
very purpose of subtracting the hero from the perils which the Fates, 
through his own noble temerity, hung over him. * ^ 



CANTO THIRD. 197 

Dragg'd through the hall, and open set the cage, 
Then kicking me, released my torn cravat, 6i5 

And sent me down the steps without a hat. 

Onward I sped, thank'd Heav'n for my relief, 
Nor minded that the people shouted Thief! 
For still methought the vixens were behind, 
I heard their Blockhead ! screaming on the wind, 62o 
Nor stopp'd, till spent I reach'd my own back-door, 
And saw my darling cane lock'd up once more. 
So when the animal that lives in sties 
From boys and curs along the kennel flies ; 
They follow not ; yet still he runs and squeals, 625 
Fancies the chase, and feels them at his heels. 

In short, I cooPd ; then hither pressed my tread, 
Boldly reflecting : — What hath man to dread 
Who travails righteously in his vocation ? — 
Here ends my exegetical narration. 630 



Ver. 617. — thanVd Heaven for my relief,'] Not even in the precipitation 
of his flight does the new JEneas forget his piety ! Who can wonder 
at the temporal prosperity and moral greatness of a man so constituted ! 

## 

621. — my own hack-door,'] It will be remembered, that " the house " 
which RuBETA deigns to dwell in " is very peculiar in its construction," 
like the occupant's immortal mind, " having no door upon the street," as 
the hero's brains have no communication with outer objects by the front 
way, like the thinking organs of other people. * * 

628, 629. Boldly reflecting: — What hath man to dread — Who travails 
righteously in his vocation'?] The same chivalrous spirit with which, 
in the Letter, after discovering, by " magnetic clairvoyance,^^ that he 
was " setting himself up as a target, at which scores of witlings and 
brisk fools would be sure to let fly successive showers of arrows," this 



198 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

The monarch paus'd, and spitting from the height, 
His slumbering people woke in pure affright. 

As when a fire-engine 's ceas'd to spirt, 
The shouting rabble wheel it through the dirt, 
Stretch the plj'd cord, and, as they move, un- 
wind ; 635 
A swarm of little blackguards buzz behind : 
So mov'd their chief the mob, his spouting o'er. 
Dragging him with them ere he touch'd the floor. 

brave soldier and poetical colonel adds : " Well — be it so. However 
well stored may be their quivers, and however thick and fast their mis- 
siles may hurtle through the air, I should feel myself but a sorry knight 
of the quill, to complain at receiving back a small portion of the change 
of which I have dispensed so much, though I should be pierced like an- 
other St. Sebastian." (p. 54.) In citing which, let us, by the way, call 
the reader to admire the felicity with which the judicious and elegant 
writer unites, in one image, the office of a shopkeeper dealing with a de- 
preciated currency, and the gallantry of a knight-errant contending with 
a host of foes, nay ! (let us say it reverently), the fortitude of a Christian 
martyr suffering for his faith, (for such is the saintly hero's own parallel 
between the miracles of revelation and " the admitted existence of the 
magnetic influence." See sub-note to v. 254, 255.) * * 

630. — exegetical — ] Probably a favorite word with the speaker, 
whom we have already shown to be a famous Greek scholar, as he is 
said to be versed in all the modern languages, including Cherokee. The 
introductory letter to " Tales and Sketches, — Such as they are," is 
pellucidly entitled " Exegetical Epistle." * * 

633, 634. As when a Jire-engine — etc.] A resumption, as it were, of 
the comparison in Canto i., where the monarch, about to eject his narra- 
tive, is likened to the same machine preparing to shed its water : — 
" Thus, when an engine is prepar'd to spout 
Whose jetting stream puts conflagrations out, 
First all is tumult with th' encircling crowd, 
And boys delighted shout their rapture loud ; 
Hush'd is the din, in mute expectance laid, 
When the pipe 's pointed and the arms are swayM." 

V. 237-242. ** 



CANTO THIRD. , 199 

Midway the den a pineboard table stood, 
Dropt with stale beer, with crumbs and ashes 
strew'd, 640 

(The relics of some former party these,) 
Sweet-smelling, too, of fish and fragrant cheese. 
Kither they whirPd the king with trampling tread, 
And, yelling, whistling, set him at the head. 



Ver. 639. — den — ] Quite in a different sense from what Rubeta 
employs it in. Servius says, fancifully, " den, as being the temporary 
habitation of a lion [the King of beasts)" * * 

640 - 642. Dropt with stale beer, etc.] It is remarked, by some one, as 
very improbable, that the floor should have been newly sanded for the 
meeting-, (as appears from Canto i, — The sand fresh-sprinkled on the 
floor that nischt, — v. 65,) yet the table left uncleansed. The critic failed 
to consider that this remissness, on the part of the house wench, was, as 
is usual in such cases, undoubtedly warranted by her knowledge of the 
folk she had to do for, as she would have expressed it ; for nothing is 
more distinctive of the character of the party here assembled, than their 
noble disregard of essentials, and their particularity in trifles: provided 
the complexion of the floor looked renovated, what to them the nastiness 
of the table they were to occupy ! as, in their journals, if the sheet be 
daily sprinkled with a fresh assortment of advertisements, what is it to 
the matter that, fixed in the centre, stands the same old Salus populi, the 
same Unfortunate's Friend ! * their filthy odor, their uncomely aspect, 
their gross unwholesomeness, are trifles quite unworthy of " all journal- 
ists truly and seriously impressed with" what Petronius calls f "the 
dignity of their vocation, and with a due appreciation of the inestimable 
value of" $30 per annum. * * 



* Certain medical notices, for whicli we have no parallel in our journals. They 
are, or were, both especial ornaments in the advertising columns of the N. Y. Am., 
where the first is still conspicuous, with a reference from the Doctor in large letterS; 
in another part of the paper, to see his advertisement on the last page. Cork. 

t N. Y. Am. Dec. 4, 1837. * * 



200 THE VISIOIN OF RUBETA. 

DuLNESS, who 'd staj'd to hear her son relate 645 

The toils he 'd suffered to exalt her state, 

Imprinted on his lips one soft caress, 

Then sought her darling sheets on Harper's press. 

But, ere she went, her influence, never lost. 

She breath'd anew o'er all the cackling host. 650 

Meanwhile, the hero, rising in his chair, 
Knock'd on the greasy board, and calFd to praj'r. 
Then rose a universal hubbub round. 
Here Gerro groan'd; there PuPAscrap'd the ground. 
The tripod stool dull Adam's proxy rides, 655 

Crows like a cock, and claps his greasy sides ; 



Ver. 645. DuL!^ESs, who W stayed — etc.] In the shape of a great blue fly, 
(Canto i. V. 187.) 

" But, loaitin^for her child, from head to head, 
Buzz'd the blue fly, and swallow'd all they said," &.c, * * 

648. Then sought her darling sheets on Harfer's press.'] Messrs. Har- 
per ^ Brothers are publishers, in New York, who print all sorts of 
trash, and in the vilest manner possible, and thereby eminently merit 
the epithet which the Manhattanese journals bestow upon thetn, of" en- 
terprisingy * * 

652. — and calVd to prayer.'] This, of course, we shall not go out of 
our way, as is too customary with annotators, to ascribe to any other 
motive than true piety, which is Rubeta's distinguishing and constant 
characteristic ; yet we cannot but remark, how well the wish to open the 
proceedings with prayer becomes a man whose entire course of literary 
exertion has shown him to be deeply imbued with the spirit of the mighty 
dead, from whose works he drew the purity which is so fragrant in his 
writings, and the eloquence which is so brilliant in his oratory. Cato 
could not speak till he had prefaced his address with prayer, and crown- 
ed Latinus calls upon the gods before he gives the opinion of the throne : 
« Prsefatus Divos solio rex infit ab alto." (.'En. xi. 301.) * * 

655. — dvll Adam's proxy — ] Coprones, the representative, as we 
have seen, of Margites, whose baptismal name is Adam, * * 



CANTO THIRD. 201 

While roar'd one rebel, springing on a bench, — 

damn your sermons ! let us have a drench ! 
With horror heard the chief, but gave not o'er. 

Those reasons urge, and tears the wretch Avho 
sw^ore. 660 

1 not deny (he said) your thirst ; but still 
Let Heav'n be call'd to sanctify the swill. 
No synod should be held without such grace ; 
Nor shall the present, while I hold this place ! 

So when the coach from Rennes to Fontenay c65 
At midnight stops to buckle the relay. 
The stifF-neck'd team, led out against their will. 
Think on their absent mares, and whinny shrill ; 
While sacres Jean, and pestes their Flemish rumps. 
Alternating his oaths with kicks and thumps* 670 

Up starts the traveller from brief repose, 
His casquette brushing on his neighbour's nose. 
Who wakes : " My stars ! Eh ! what 's the matter 

there ? " 
God's name ! — growls Jean : — Stand still, you 

cursed bear ! 

Ver. 660. — and tears the wretch ivho swore.] Beautiful meekness, forgiv- 
ing charity, and pious pity, in Rubeta, are all evinced in this one hemi- 
stich. Words of reason he has for the rest, but for the profane sinner 
only tears. He resents not his insolence, he reproves not his rebellion, 
he does not even check him for his oath ; — he weeps ! O son of Ve- 
nus and progenitor of Cjesar ! " hide thy diminished front ! " * * 

672. — casquette — ] French travelling-cap. * * 

674. God's name / — ] Au nom de Dieu ! The usual oath with which, 
26 



202 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

But, much less happy than the man of boots, 675 
111 might the newsman harness in his brutes. 
And now dire waste of bawdry had befel. 
Had not bold Scurra rose and jerk'd the bell. 
Silence ! — he cry'd ; — and thou, dread chief, whose 

croak — 
(The door let in the barmaid as he spoke) — 680 
Kept us, while thrice the cuckoo call'd, asleep. 
We love thy wit, and joy to see thee weep ; 
But bottle up the pray'r, to grace thy books. 
What, man ! we 're not thy gulls, but brother-rooks. 



in France, the postilions, and sometimes people a degree or two above 
them, usher in a long string of curses, usually ending with the three 
elegant exclamations dilated upon by Sterne. * * 

675. — the man of hoots,'] The conductor and the postilions of a 
French diligence stand each in a pair of leg-pieces of such ample pro- 
portions, that they are usually stuffed with straw to help his calves, 
while in height they make about one half of the entire man. With his 
blue frock tucked ove-r his arm, as he sometimes plods along the high- 
way by the side of his animals, the man in boots looks beautifully like 
the picture of the cat in the fable. * * 

678. — Scurra — ] Supposed, by the majority of commentators, to be 
the same with the rebellious man of oaths. * * 

691. — ivhile thrice the cuckoo calVd — ] The parlor, it appears from 
Canto i. v. 64, was furnished with one of those old-fashioned kitchen- 
clocks which announce the hour by the appearance of a wooden cuckoo. 
The bird shows himself on the sudden resilience of a little door above the 
dial-plate, bows his head at each stroke of the bell, like an orator deliv- 
ering a salutatory address, and then pops in again, when the door myste- 
riously closes. Wonderful things they are, these cuckoos, and must 
have been very consolatory to an unhappy husband ; but they are almost 
unknown to the present generation. * * 

684. — man ! tve 're not thy gulls, but brother-rooks.] It appears, from 
the rudeness of Scurra, as well as from the fact that Rubeta himself 
always addresses the other members of the Convention as his peers or 



CANTO THIRD 203 

And see ! where Kitty, with her pipes and gin, 685 
Impatient, thrusts her greasy topknot in. 
Fellows ! your stoppers and your souls prepare : 
Your hearts her eyes will fire, your pipes her hair. 

He said, and brush'd the table with his sleeve. 
The cornet, whizzing by them, took French leave. 690 

As when the moon, some cloudless summer's night. 
Pours on the world a flood of living light ; 
When not a zephyr wakes the silver'd deep. 
And the black shadows of the mountains sleep ; 
The shore scarce murmurs, and the woods are 
still ; 695 

That all is hush through heaven, on lake, and hill ; 

mates, that, as the elevation of the monarch was but temporary, so liis 
supremacy at the council-board was elective, and dependent on the favor 
of the conclave. * * 

691 - 699. As tvhen the moon — etc.] I beg that no person will endeav- 
or to trace a lame resemblance between the style of this comparison, 
(the subject and object are altogether different,) and that of Pope's inimi- 
table version of the moonlight-scene in the Iliad. The idea was sug- 
gested by an actual observation of the effects of such a scene, as they 
are described in the text ; the scene itself being copied after nature. It 
was with infinite mortification that the writer recollected that some such 
picture had been given by Homer, and rendered popular by Pope, and 
he accordingly endeavored to efface all similitude that might exist in the 
conception ; and were it not that the four first words of his own com- 
parison are unfortunately the same as those which open the lovely par- 
aphrase by the great English poet, there would perhaps be no resem- 
blance whatever. It happens that the precise passage from the 
translation of the Iliad is cited in a note to the fourth Canto.* The 
reader may therefore judge of the sincerity of these remarks ; the ego- 
tism of which, as it is caused solely by my dread of appearing to have 
copied what T would not acknowledge, I trust he will have the kindness 
to pardon. 

* See Appendix, p. 398. * * 



204 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Then sink the angry billows of the breast, 
And man's deep heart is like the lake at rest ; 
Love reigns supreme, — glad youths adore the 

pow'r. 
And maids grow kinder in the melting hour : 700 

So at the gin the wit-hounds' clamors cease. 
And their rude muzzles own the calm of peace. 
Like as the flies, some chilly morn in fall. 
Stick to the mantel, numb'd, or stud the wall ; 
Scarce may the touch their torpid limbs unglue : 705 
Soon as the fire roars blazing up the flue, 
Brisk through the room the buzzing parties move. 
And, pleas'd, renew their little life of love. 
Such spirits and life the sons of Sch^ffer feel, 
Warm'd by the pale elixir of the still. 7io 

They, who before had doz'd, perhaps had slept, 
(Save in the tumult, when the hero wept,) 
Now feel new pertness fire the vapid brain, 
Sing their lewd songs, and tell their jokes again. 

Ver. 701, 702. So at the gin the wit-hounds^ clamors cease, — And their rude 
muzzles own the calm of peace.] The poet might here, as in v. 633, have 
taken up another of his own comparisons, and likened the newsmen, now 
contented, to the puppies when they taste again the teat; for it was just 
before Rubeta commenced his narration that the wit-hounds were re- 
sembled to these thirsty innocents : — 

" So when the mother-hound, sore-pinch'd for food, 
Steals from the kennel and her blue-ey'd brood, 

etc. etc. 
The wit-hounds yelp'd dry sorrow for the treat 
Of pipes and drams, the puppies mourn the teat." 

Cantoi.v. 96-103. ** 



CANTO THIRD. 205 

DuLNESS with rapture would have own'd each 

jest, 715 

And clasp'd the simpering blockheads to her breast. 

But not the heroic saint would taste one drop ; 
He saw the jug fly past, nor bade it stop ; 
Then rais'd the water-flagon to his head, 
Gulp'd down a mouthful, cough'd, and spit, and 
said : — 720 

Let others quafl* the sable berrj's juice 
Whose dull pulsation pleads a hard excuse ; 
No drench needs stimulate my brisker brains ; 
Zigzag their currents, like the royal Dane's. 
Venus, all bounteous, flam'd upon my birth ; 725 

Which makes me wise 'bove other sons of earth, 
(With beetle brows, and pencilPd under-lip. 
And sweetly walking with an angel's step.) 

Ver. 719. Then raised the water-Jlagon to his head,] Nasty fellows they 
must be, these newsmen, who drink out of the same pitcher, says a mod- 
ern commentator ; whom another corrects, by considering the act as one 
of brotherly familiarity. Both are wrong: it is evidently the high pre- 
rogative of his place which Rubeta assumes. * * 

724. Zigzag their currents, like the royal Bane^s.] It is a curious fact, that 
this extraordinary man, at a more recent period, chose to make this very 
statement a sort ofjinale to his philosophic Letter, as we have already 
shown. Were there further proof needed than that Letter itself, this 
iteration were satisfactory evidence of the truth of the declaration, as 
showing how strongly the hero himself is impressed with the fact of 
his intellectual resemblance to the rat-piercing Hamlet. * * 

725-728. Venus, all bounteous, fiarri'd — etc.] Believing the hero's own 
assertion, that he was born under Venus, it is a singular fact, which may 
revive astrology, that almost all the qualities, personal and intellectual, 
her ladyship was said to bestow on the happy beings whose des- 



206 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Let a cag'd Tasso chant the Lord in sin, 

Let beastly Juan sop his wit in gin, 730 

tiny she controlled, may be found in tliis immortal man. " Venus est 
Stella benevola, et facit natum pulchrum, et maxime oculis et superci- 
liis carnosum, mediocris slalurce.: secundum animam vero blandum, face- 
turn, eloquentem, musicalia diligentem, voliipiatem, gaudium et choream 
desiderantem, ornatum corporis diligentem, et suaviter incidentem.^^ 
Alb. Magn. de Secreiis Mulierum. Lugd. 1582. It is true, that nothing 
is said of the thin and delicately marked lips, but that we suppose comes 
under the head of beauty, as delight in the fair is probably included in 
the voluptat. gaud, et char, desid., and an admiration of silk stockings (of 
which he once wrote an eulogy in his gazette), in the ornal. corp. dili- 
gens. * * 

729, 730. Let a cag^d Tasso chant the Lord in sin, — Let beastly Juan sop 
his wit in gin,] The poet who sang Jerusalem Delivered was wont to 
attribute the inspiration of his epic muse to Malmsey, as Tassoni says 
in one of the notes to his amusing poem : — '• Ennio, Orazio, e Torquato 
Tasso non sapevano comporre se prima non avevano ben bevuto ; e il 
Tasso in particolare soleva dire che la malvagia sola era quella che gli 
faceva fare buoni versi, e lo faceva perfettamente comporre." To which 
he adds : — " Gli spiriti de malinconici si rallegrano e si sollevano, e gril- 
lano eccitati dal calore del vino possente e buono : " which is precisely 
the sentiment of Rubeta in v. 721, 722 : and this being correct, as we 
have no doubt it is, it would follow inversely, that men of great vivacity 
would write better when abstemious : therefore Byron must have been 
sadly in the dumps when he put Don Juan upon paper, if the current 
scandal be true that that most characteristic of his greater works was 
composed under the stimulus of gin-and-water. 

Rubeta, it has been seen on p. 159, loves to dwell upon the imputed 
faults of great men ; not, as the Author would there have it, from a love 
of calumny, and the desire (so common to little minds) of depreciating 
the moral excellence of distinguished characters, but solely for the good 
of his fellow-creatures, and to gratify that indignation which human 
frailty always excites in the breast of " evangelical " virtue ; for, as we 
have seen, — 

" An honest man he is, and hates the slime 
Which sticks on filthy deeds." 

# » 

729. — chant the Lord — ] Critics quarrel with this phrase, as a 
strange allusion to the nature of Torqdato's great epic poem ; nor is it 



CANTO THIRD. 207 

I, like great Priam, am a Nazarene, 
And taste no liquor, though I shave me clean. 
Come ! bright elixir my own Adam drank ! 
When, with his long-hair'd rib, on Phrat's green 
bank, 

at all surprising, that Bayle should accuse Rubeta of absolute ignor- 
ance of the Jerusalem Delivered, and attribute his expression to a 
conjecture founded on the title ; but it must be observed that in mat- 
ters of fact Rubeta has a phraseology of his own, and no more can be 
said about it. * * 

731. 1, like great Prjam, am a JVazarene,] The Ed. Passam. has 

I, like great Hector, am half JVazarene, 
{JVazarene, as in the text, for Nazarite ;) vi^hich is undoubtedly the right 
reading, unless Samson be the name, as I am more than inclined to sus- 
pect; for it is observable, that the note in Pope's Iliad, which relates to 
the very passage whereto the learned and classical Rubeta would appear 
to have reference, mentions Samson as a Nazarite, and therefore for- 
swearing the use of wine, as Hector abstained from it through pru- 
dence: II. vi. 329—331, (263 — 265 of the original.) 

732. — though I shave me clean.] A Nazarite, or, as the hero has 
it, Nazarene,* did not shave the hair of his head during the continu- 
ance of his vow. " All the days of the vows of his separation, there 
shall no razor come upon his head ; until the days be fulfilled, in the 
which he separateth himself unto the Lord, he shall be holy, and shall 
let the locks of the hair of his head grow." [JVumhers vi. 5.) Hence, 
by a very natural exaggeration of zeal, these devotees not only suffered 
the hair and beard to grow, but wore a garment made of the skins of 
goats or camels, with the hair on, like the wandering prophets ; such as 

Elijah and the holy Baptist wore, girt about with a leathern girdle. 

# * 

734. —Phsat's green bank.] Phrat is said to be the Persian name 
of the Euphrates, one of the four rivers of Eden : Eu signifying 
water. * * 

* Nazaren, or Nazirean, is a name in church history (a darling study of Rubeta's : 
see " Visit, &c.") which, first given to Jews who embraced Christianity, was after- 
wards confined to a sort of heretics whose tenets and religious rites were a mixture of 
Christianity and Judaism. * * 



208 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

He chew'd soft fruits, whereof kind Eve was strip- 
per, 735 
And made the rind serve both for bowl and dipper ! 
Fill me, like him, with wit all wits above. 
That I may breathe such strains as angels love. 
And unpedantic Eves ! — He said, and quaff 'd. 
His fellows rais'd their noggins, wink'd, and 
laugh'd ; 740 

Ver. 735, 736. He cheiu'd soft fruits, whereof kind Eve was stripper, — And 
made the rind serve both for bowl and dipper! ] 

The savory pulp they chew, and in the rind, 
Still, as they thirsted, scoop the brimming stream. 

Par. Lost, iv. 335. 
The hand of so great a genius as Rubeta improves every thing it 
touches, as Dr. Johnson said of Goldsmith : we are therefore not sur^ 
prised that the master of sublimity himself should receive new lustre at 
his hands. The picture of Eve, peeling the fruit for our general sire, 
is a most beautiful addition to what Addison calls "the gallantries of 
Paradise." * * 

738. — such strains as angels love,] Strains like Adam's. An allusion 
which will be readily understood by readers of Milton. * * 

739, — unpedantic Eves ! ] This we consider, not, as some think, a 
mere allusion to the simplicity of the great mother in Milton, or, as oth- 
ers, a general reference to the principal class of Rubeta's readers, but 
the reflection of a loving look cast back upon his lectures. See Canto ii. 
V. 494. — Petronius occasionally comes up to him in this species of gen- 
erous flattery. Stimulated by the great success, with the ladies, of his 
eloquent rival, the following year Petronius took his place, and, by a 
pardonable zeal common with the great men of the day, to prepossess 
the fair in favor of his own exertions, he took occasion, when puffing, 
as it is very vulgarly called, a public course of Lectures on Elocution, 
to pay his expected audience this merited compliment : — " We may do a 
kindness to the ladies, who are no bad judges, as certainly they are fre- 
quent inspirers, of eloquence, by saying to them, that these lectures are 
addressed to them as well as to the other sex." (JV. Y. Am., Dec. 13, 
1837.) What prodigious children we shall have one of these days, when 
their mothers are thus made pregnant with all good things, it is not easy 



CANTO THIRD. 209 

Laugh'd to behold his modest eyes run o'er 

To view the untasted cup he just forswore, 

Like Rozinante, forc'd to cloak his fire, 

Stav'd from the ladies of his heart's desire. 

For mighty Gerard watch'd him, well he knew, 745 

Sole pale ascetic of that jocund crew. 



to say. No sphere of knowledge is now unvisited by the gentler sex. 
Even Anatomy opens to them its delightful regions, (see papers of the 
day.) And we shall soon have those happy times return, when a beauty 
shut her closet-door on Cupid, and, turning from her pigeonholes his 
mother's doves, filled them instead with calculations in arithmetic, and 
instead of nursing fools, (not to speak of chronicling small-beer,) was 
safely delivered of geometric demonstrations, and dandled in her snowy 
hands some bouncing problem of astronomy.* 

743. Like Rozinante, forced, etc.] Alludes to the adventure of that 
noble animal with the Gallician mares, when, conscious of his own sleek- 
ness, and in the pride of youthful vigor, he would have shown his cour- 
tesy, but was ungraciously beaten off by the packstaves of the Yangije- 
SES. " No se habia curado Sancho de echar sueltas a Rocinante, se- 
guro de que le conocia por tan manso y tan poco rijoso que todas las 
yeguas de la dehesa de Cordoba no le hicieran tomar mal siniestro. Or- 
deno pues la suerte y el diablo, que no todas voces duerme, que anda- 
ban por aquel valle paciendo una manada de hacas galicianas de unos 
arrieros yangiieses, etc. Sucedio pues que a Rocinante le vino en de- 
seo de refocilarse con las seiioras facas, y saliendo, asi como las olio, de 
su natural paso y costumbre, sin pedir licencia a su dueno, tomo un tro- 
tillo algo picadillo, y se fu6 a comunicar su necesidad con ellas ; mas 
ellas, que a lo que parecio debian de tener mas gana de pacer que de al, 
recibieronle con las herraduras y con los dientes, de tal manera que a 
poco espacio se le rompi6ron las cinchas, y quedo sin silla en pelota ; 
pero lo que 61 debio mas de sentir fue, que viendo los arrieros la fuerza 
que a sus yeguas se les hacia, acudieron con estacas, y tantos palos le 
di6ron que le derribaron malparado en el suelo." Don Quijote, Tomo 

1°. XV. 

The part we have italicized is so singularly applicable to the sen- 

* As the unfortunate Hypatia, daughter of Theon of Alexandria, is said to 
have done, composing commentaries on Apollonius and Diophantus instead of love- 
letters. One of her books on the Almagest of Ptolemy is extant. * * 

27 



210 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

He, when the hero's latest spirt was play'd, 
Quaff 'd of the sacred Ijmph himself, then laid 
His giant hand upon the regal head. 
And, patting, mumbled, — Brother, 't was well said. 750 

Now rose big-mouth 'd Petronius, rich in hair, 
Round and ferocious as a Russian bear. 
Too proud to imitate his peers by far. 
He scorn 'd the pipe, but sported a cigar. 
With awful mein his hand thrice waving round, 755 
He spread it on his chest ; then came the sound : — 
Good cheer — well cater'd — ay, in sooth, good 
cheer. 
Capital wench ! choice liquor — water clear : 



timental gallantry of the hero of the Vision, that we have quoted it 
more for the amusement of the reader than as german to the matter. 
But as Sancho says of Rozinante, — " Jamas tal crei de Rocinante, que 
le tenia por persona casta y tan pact/ica como yo. En fin, bien dicen que 
es menester mucho tiempo para venir a conocer las personas, y que no hay 
cosa segura en esta vida.^^ [Ibid.) A sage reflection, which will solace 
every one who has been cognisant of Rdbeta's chivalry and unheard-of 
sufierings in the cause of injured or appealing beauty, and wondered 
how such things could be. * * 

745. — Gjsrard — ] Hale, the Editor of the Journal of Commerce ; whose 
baptismal name, however, is not Gerard, but David, as we have before ob- 
served : a mistake which the Author constantly makes in reference to this 
distinguished person; and therefore we shall not hereafter notice it. ** 

250. — Brother, ] Brother, in the familiarity of spiritual affection ; as is 
usual with the citizens of the New Jerusalem. 

751. — hig-mouth^d — ] Not, as some would have it, literally, for Pe- 
tronius is not in that way more liberally endowed than his neighbours, 
but in respect of his eloquence — magna sonans — " verba deo similis " * 

* ViDA of Virgil ; Poet, iii. ad Jitum. 



CANTO THIRD. 211 

That is — albeit — if — no — yea — ay — clear wa- 
ter. 
Pledge we the cat'ress then, — our hostess' daugh- 
ter. 760 
The toast is drunk. Th' altisonant resum'd : — 
None will gainsay what 's sequent — 't is presum'd. 
The horologe, if dial-plate speak true, — 
Scan him, Rubeta, for his jaw's to you, — 
The horologe's thunder soon w^ill roar, 765 
Boom o'er our heads, and shake the soul once more, 

— in which, as we shall take occasion to show, his capacity is immeas- 
urable : — 

a large mouth indeed, 

That spits forth death and mountains, rocks and seas. 
Talks as familiarly of roaring lions 
As maids of thirteen do of puppy dogs. 

K. John, ii. 2. 
767. Good cheer — ] See Petronius on public dinners, passim. * * 
759. That is — albeit — if — etc.] This is the famous staccato style to 
which Rubeta refers in Canto iii. v. 24 : — 

" As thick as dashes on Petronius' sheet." 
The ay, in sooth, catered, gainsay, etc., are all favorite and familiar 
phrases belonging to the olden time and the N. Y. American. * * 

764. Scan him, Rubeta, for his jaw^s to you, — ] Commentators are 
puzzled to make sense of this line, — a frequent occurrence with all read- 
ers of this distinguished newsman's ephemeral emanations. Obscurity 
is in some degree a consequence of super-eminence : the head of Mont 
Blanc is not always as easily visible as the Nose of St. Anthony. How- 
ever, by substituting/ace for jaiv, we shall see daylight more easily, and 
the line will stand as though it were written 

Mark it, Rubeta, for it faces you. * * 

765, 766. The horologe's thunder soon will roar, — Boom, etc.] This 
is a passage of such astounding sublimity that few will be inclined to 
give any modern credit for it : but, when we assure the Jreader that such 
is a mere trifle for Petronius, whose gigantic phantasia fashions in the 



212 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Till in yon cope be merg'd the dismal Steven, 
And men, amaz'd, shriek out, There goes Eleven ! 

JEtnean stithy of his volcanic cerebrum still-more-Cyclopean thun- 
derbolts, which he fulminates with terrific bombulation, on the most 
nugatory parergy, to the occecation of his perstricted and all but de- 
phlogisticated admirers, he will cease to wonder. For example, in his 
journal of Nov. 22, 1837, this Miltonic newsman thus describes the cel- 
ebration of a party-triumph, 

cum 

Herodis ventre dies, unctaque fenestra 
Dispositse pinguem nebulam vomu^re lucernae ; * 

"The roar of artillery ushered in the morning — and while these lines are going 
through the press, a second salvo is again awaking the echoes of the surrounding re- 
gion." Etc. — " and the loud-moulhed cannon, mingling its voice here with the roar of 
the Atlantic surge, will go booming through this great State until it be lost amid the 
eternal thunders of Niagara.'^ 

The roar of the surge at the wharves of New York is most happily 
descriptive of a well-known fact, and the idea of the great gun's going 
booming through the State, and ending its career by felo-de-se in the 
falls of Niagara, is conceived with an originality and grandeur that 
can only be surpassed by the sublimity of the expression and the mag- 
nificence of the cadence : it shall " go booming through this great State 
until it be lost amid the eternal thunders of Niagara ! " Nothing could 
have inspired such eloquence for so ordinary an occasion, but what he 
himself calls, in the same article, an " invigorated hope in the recupera- 
tive power of republican institutions " ! 

K-kuvoTaTHv i^affx&iv, 
'D^S ^^y ffou roTffi koyois 
^u(p^ov 'ixiffTiv av3-(jj.t 

It is in view of ihe above elegant extract from the American, that we would suggest 
a slight alteration in the text, and read, (as perhaps the Author really wrote them,) 
the 765th and 7G6th verses thus : 

The horologe will thunder soon once more, 
Boom o'er our heads, and wake us with its roar. 
The line which follows supports our conjecture. Certainly the picture of the clock 
booming over the heads of the party, until it buried itself in the roof, would form a 
capital pendant for the cannon and Niagara. * * 

767. — Steven,'] A pure Saxon word, signifying clamor, loud noise, 
and used by Spenser ; and which must be particularly relished by all 

* Pers. v. 179—181. + Aristoph. Nub. 1024—1027. * * 



CANTO THIRD. 213 

Then to our rites, ere yawn the cuckoo's beak. 
The wreck clear off, — no, — ay ! clear off the 
wreck. 77o 

The hirsute ceas'd, and with a martial frown 
Order'd fresh candles, puff'd, and sat him down. 
Hell saw the furrow'd forehead of the Colonel, 
And o'er his eighteen banks flow'd Styx infernal. 
The very damn'd shriek'd out. IxIon's wheel 775 
Then first felt friction, and forgot to reel ; 

who are familiar with the adrrliration and reverence Petronius so fre- 
quently expresses for pure " Anglo-Saxon " ; though it is true that 
this is the only instance recorded of the sincerity of his devotion; which 
would make us suspect that the Poet had introduced it himself" ut inter- 
mortuum vocabulum in libris repullulet." (Turneb. in Juv. Sat. xii.) 
But for this point, and others in the great man's speech, — as its dubious- 
ness, its parentheticalness, etc. etc., — we refer the reader to the next 
Canto, where all these matters are expressed in full. * * 

772. — puffed — ] Not the cigar, as some suppose. It merely ex- 
presses the action of the masseter muscles after so extraordinary an ex- 
ertion. PiERiDs tells us that, in the ancient copies, blew is the word. 
There are not wanting those who, recollecting the daily practice of news- 
paper-editors, would make Petronius guilty of a pantomimic allusion 
thereto; but they forget that the majesty of the epopee does not admit 
of such conceits, and, though Milton has made quibblers of his devils, 
a like liberty cannot be taken with the superior order of the press. * * 

773. — Colonel,] By which it appears that Petronius enjoys a simi- 
lar dignity with that of Rubeta. In the sixth Canto he is called, for dis- 
tinction, " th' amphibolous colonel." * * 

774 - 775. — o^er his eighteen banks JloyPd Styx infernal. — The very 
damn'd shriek'' d out. Ixion's wheel, etc.] An effect vastly superior to 
that of the frown of Jove. When this model of hen-pecked husbands 
bends his awful brows in Homer, all Olympus trembles, 

fj^iyoit S' Ix'o.t^iv "OXv/u,7rov, 

[11. i. 530 : ) 



totum nutu tremefecit Olympum 



as Virgil translates it [Mn. x. 115:) but, at the wrinkled forehead of the 



214 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

And Pelops' sire, who saw his pool stand still, 
Seiz'd the dread moment, and took one long swill. 

Now Kitty swept the table in a trice, 
'Mid wink, and joke, and innuendo nice. 780 

CoPRONES, amorous, would have had her stay, 
And curv'd his arm to intercept the way ; 
But the chaste quean eschew'd the mantling hand, 
Tripp'd up his heels, and left him on the sand. 
Sore rose the youth, amid the gen'ral roar, 785 

Limp'd o'er the boards, and double-barr'd the door. 
Befoul'd with spawl, which flecks of sand emboss, 
He looked a back-log dotted o'er with moss. 

This done, and clapp'd their mossy brother's back. 
Up rose the sons-of-Dulness' dirty pack. 790 



newsman, Hell itself, unused to terror, shook with an earthquake ! 
This, too, it must be observed, when the frown was expressive but of dig- 
nity or determination. What then had it been of ire ? Styx would 
have deserted his oozy bottom completely, and Pluto's hidden fires 
been quenched for ever. O had Longinds but waited for this passage ! 
However, it is some satisfaction to know that poor Tantalus, whom 
we have always pitied, was somewhat better off than the rich man in 
Abraham's bosom. * * 
790. Up rose the sons — etc.] In some copies pointed thus: — 
Up rose the sons of Dulness, dirty pack! 
a reading which, though recommended by Dr. Pearce, is not to be ap- 
proved, for the epithet dirty is, it appears to me, not used emphatically, 
but as simply descriptive of the general or the generic character of the 
party, — a sort of delicate stigma, laid on with all possible respect, as 
Petronius says when he accuses Rubeta of ignorance and imperfect 
honesty.* * * 

* " In very truth, the putting forth [of] such objections against the performance of an act 
of common honesty by the banks — the payment of their debts — does seem to us — we say 



CANTO THIRD. 215 

Then stripp'd the Chief his shoulders' comely pride, 
And brac'd his breeches o'er the snow-white hide ; 
And the rest having bar'd a various skin, 
But girt their loins, the solemn rites begin. 



it with all possible respect, — to denote the gravest misconceptions of duty, or very inade- 
quate knowledge of the subjects discussed," 

N. Y. Am. ofllth Dec. 1837, on the Comm. Adv. of 8th of the same. 

A day or two before, referring to the same article, he calls it " self-complacent," 
and says he does not mean it reproachfully. It is in the usual style of these curious 
people, who even give each other the lie direct with perfect indifference, and receive it 
back again as it is given. So you may hear two scavengers, or a knot of chimney- 
sweepers, damn each other to h with the greatest good-nature imaginable. Cer- 
tain expressions are to be translated according to the grade of society in which they 
are used. Thus, collier A. says to collier B., who is spinning some tremendous yarn, 
You be damned! This elegant compliment would, in a set a few degrees above them, 
be softened into Now you don't ! and again, in still more refined circles, would resolve 
itself into the simple exclamation, /nc?eerf/ Is it possible ! 

We have taken this etymological trouble for the benefit of the readers of newspa- 
pers, who in future will not be surprised to hear the American tell another journal, of 
equal standing, it is guilty of " direct" or " clear falsehood," and tl>e latter perhaps 
retaliate, without cither's being leaded for the civility. ** 



CANTO FOURTH. 



CATALOGUE OF THE NEWSMEN 



28 



ARGUMENT. 

Solemn invocation. — RUBETA. Place of his nativity. His 
divine parentage. His extraordinary generation and concep- 
tion. His birth. The ceremonies observed thereat. The 
attending deities. The infant is conveyed to modern Ida. 
What was done to him there : with an account of the adder- 
stone, and of the sleep of enchantment. How the little hero 
was made to change cradles with the child of a herdsman. 
Extraordinary pains to rear him. His education. He attains 
manhood. How he was prompted to leave his supposed pa- 
rents. Preparations for the voyage to Manhattan. What 
happened on the voyage. The hero commences his earthly 
probation. His distress in a garret. His invocation of his 
mother's gossips. Its success. The temptation. Artful reluc- 
tance of the hero. How dispelled. He devotes himself, soul and 
body, to his tempters. The hero commences his ministry. Rapid 
success. His works recounted, and briefly characterized. His 
journal analyzed. Concluding apostrophe. — PETRONIUS. 
His parentage. The Poet apostrophizes him. Petronius as- 
sumes a task for which he is unfitted. Is befooled by his cor- 
respondents. His felicitous style. His sound judgment. His 
perfect consistency. Enthusiasm in a grizzled head. Petro- 
nius, a patron to certain muses. Their individual merits re- 
corded. Petronius, a warm friend, and a bitter enemy. 
His pardonable boast of candor , impartiality ^ manliness, and 
independence. His venality. His modesty and regard for fe- 
minine chastity. Petronius, the Palemon of the West. 
Summary of his character as a newsman. — MARGITES. He 
is disposed of in twelve verses ; and the Poet orders his aman- 
uensis to take up the next character in the catalogue. ** 



THE 



VISION OF RUBETA 



CANTO FOURTH. 

O THOU who taught'st the bard, that liv'd by ra- 
tion, 
To muster in the field the croaking nation ; 
Who, in another needy poet's brain, 
Butcher and bear didst sort on battle-plain ; 
Say (for, without thee, who on earth were able 5 
To make one song of these ten sons of Babel ?) 
What graces rare invest, what virtues ripe. 
These lampblack-heroes, thunderbolts of type, 

Ver. 1. — the bard that liv^d by ration,] Allusion to the very sensible 
fable, that would make the author of the two greatest poems ever writ- 
ten to have been a wandering beggar. * * 

2. To muster in the Jield the croaking nation,] In the Battle of the 
Frogs and Mice. * * 

3. — another needy poet — ] Butler, the immortal author of Hu- 
dibras ; a poem which contains more moral tvisdom than the works of 
all the poets put together, from Homer and the dithyrambic Theban 
down, saving only the plays of Shakspeare. * * 

5, 6. Say, {for, without thee, &c.)] 

"^ff^rtn vvv fiot 

'lCfJt,s7s, X, T. X. 

'H/AiTs h, », T. X. 

n. ii. 484. 

8. — lampblack-heroes, — ] Printing-ink is a composition of lamp- 
black and oil. * * 

i&. — thunderbolts of type,] " Fulmina belli" is Virgil's expression, 



220 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

That round the table stand, with shoulders stripp'd, 
Like gangway-culprits sentenc'd to be whipp'd ; lo 
Say, that their glories Fame may trumpet far, 
And men the jackdaws know for what they are ! 

First (for who else ?) RUBETA ! Ulster's pride. 
Born where the Hudson rolls his purple tide. 
On the high bank which morn's first shadows 
climb, 15 

The hero's cradle was itself sublime. 

applied to the Scipios {^n. yi. 844); exactly rendered, by Drtden, 
"thunderbolts of war"; whence Pope adopted it, in paraphrase of 
^s^KTovTis "A^ms [servants of Mars), in the famous speech of Ajax, (7^. 
XV. 733.). ** 

14, 15. Born, etc. — On the high bank which morn's first shadows 
clim'b,'\ There is much uncertainty with regard to the birthplace of 
the mighty hero of the Vision : 

Ulster, Ojveider,* New York, Dutchess, county of Suffolk, 
Quun'ticutj also, lays claim to the birth of the sage.} 
The Poet would place it somewhere on the west bank of the Hudson, 
in the county of Ulster and State of New York ; yet we have heard 
a person, long resident in that State, assert Rubeta to be a native of 
New England, and, he believed, of Stonington in Connecticut. 
And this nativity, as the reader is aware, we ourselves prefer for many 
reasons, which, as they are scattered through the second Canto, it is not 
necessary here to recapitulate. One of these days, when the hero shall 
be taken from tlie scene of his immortal labors, and all New York shall 
be overflowed with grief, city upon city will be founding claims, on this 
uncertainty, to the distinction of his cradle ; that, as of Homer, men 
shall say of the mighty Rubeta, with but a change of title, 

* It is a curious fact that Oneida signifies the Upright Stone. This stone was a 
clumsy cylindrical mass, the god or goddess of the tribe which took its name : whence 
the name of the lake, and, as in the text, of the county. See Morse's Am. Gazetteer, 
1797. 

t The Indian name whence we have Connecticut is said to have been Quunnihticut. 
See Morse's A7n. Gaz. 

X Smyrna, Chips, Colophon, Salamis, Rhodos, Argos, Athenae, 
Orbis de patria certat, Homere, tua. 



CANTO FOURTH. 221 



Hence, in his works, that solemn strain he sings. 
Which lifts the soul to Heaven on seraph's wings. 



Seven wealthy cities claim'd the newsman dead 
Through which the living newsman begg'd his bread : 

where begged is to be understood in the poetical sense of pandering to 
the chaste tastes of the people by the publication of horrid accidents 
and beastly outrages, of coining extra-sixpences by the insertion of 
lying advertisements in editorial type and in the body of his newspaper, 
and of retailing political slanders to ingratiate a party, or subserve the 
purposes of private pique and malicious envy, — with other elegant and 
honorable arts, too numerous to mention, and for all which, verily, he 
hath his reward in the stately monument erected to his virtues in this 
grave epic poem, and in the grant of arms obtained by royal concession 
from the principal herald of the King of Bantam. * * 

17, 18. Hence, in his works, that solemn strain, etc.] An allusion 
it appears to certain sublime stanzas, which occur in the Mysterious 
Bridal. As these are interwoven inextricably with the prose, the reader 
will allow for the necessity we are under of quoting somewhat at 
length; if indeed the pleasure he must receive, from even the prose of 
this extraordinary writer, be not a sufficient compensation for the time 
it may cost him. 

" when a sudden transition was imparted to the feeling's of the whole group. 

Erecting her bending figure to its full height, her dark eyes kindling like sparks of 
lightning, she [sc. the group] looked upwards, and pointing' towards the house, with 
a clear and shrill voice pronounced these words : — 

" A mischief, mischief, mischief, 
And a nine-times killing curse. 
By day and by night, to the caitiff wight 
Who shakes the poor like snakes from his door. 
And shuts the womb of his purse ! " 

The bridal poet must have imitation large, for certainly this is a very 
fine specimen of the exertion of that faculty on the Rhime of the An- 
cient Mariner. The nine-times killing curse would be just the thing for 
cats, and the ivomh of the purse explains very satisfactorily the pithy ad- 
dress of the footpad, when he calls upon his customers to stand and 
deliver. 

We continue the quotation, as it is too favorable, an opportunity for 
enriching these otherwise dull comments to be pretermitted, and be- 
cause we consider that the famous description of the Sibyl's change of 
countenance and form, when {see Mn. vi.) she felt the present deity, is 
far surpassed by this stupendous genius. 



222 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

For there, supine, the youth Would drowse all day, 
Enamor'd of the scene which round him lay, 20 

'•' Then directing her attention particularly to the son and heir, and pointing her long 
bony finger at him, she resumed her wild malediction thus : — 
" Talcotl's son and Talcotl's heir, 
Shall never enjoy the mansion here ; 
Five years shall pass, — and his dying groans. 
Shall fill these halls with tears and moans ; 
For a wreath of night-shade shall circle his head. 
And the grave be his cold and youthful bed : — 
Note well the hour ! — it is said ! — it is said ! ! 
The passionate man was appalled ! [Poor fellow ! how could he help it ?] He quail- 
ed beneath \.he fierij Jlashings of her piercing eyes ; while every member of the house- 
hold, and every guest, was petrified [i. e. turned into Stones] with astonishment." 
[Does not this, and the dark eyes kindling like sparks of lightning, etc. etc., surpass 
in terrific sublimity the " cui talia fanli, etc." ?] 

Of the above verses, it were too fatiguing to point out the particular 
beauties, or to translate into common English the poet's classical phrase- 
ology ; we can merely exclaim, in the elegant language and honest 
admiration of one of the Bridal heroes, " Now that 's what I call a little 
too slick, — it 's true poetry, — and that 's what can't often be said, I cal- 
culate," or, in the less refined words of Mopsus, 

Quae tibi, quae tali reddam pro carmine dona? [Yi'r.g. Ed. v. 81.) 
Shall we go on, or shall we leave this " sanctissimus vates " till some 
future Domenichino transfer to canvass the bony finger and thunder-and- 
lightning eyes — the vultus et pectus anhelum, of the North-American 
Sibyl ? We consult the reader's pleasure, — his improvement, — and 
continue. 

At the catastrophe of the story, which appears to be brought about by 
a young man's walking home with a girl whom pity induces him to pick 
up in the " Cimmerian darkness" of John Street (in New York), seeing 
that she melted into tears, and whose "elegance in form and step" 
modestly interested him, as Tamar's did Judah by the road-side, we 
have another of tliose poetical denunciations, which must have been 
awful from the Jltful-headed JVorna who uttered them, "her eyes flashing 
with unearthly lustre." 

" He is gone to his home, and Talcott's wife 
Bewails her offspring — the pride of her life ; — 
Like a beautiful tree he was fresh and fair, 
But the deadly blast hath left him bare : — 
A blight 's upon Talcott ! a worm 's at the core, 
And that proud-groicing tree shall blossom no more ! " 
" The utterance of these lines was accompanied with frantic gestures ; and, as if over- 
come by the violence [beauty ?] of her own incantations, [no doubt, poor creature !] 
she fell and expired." 



CANTO FOURTH. 223 

Gaze, with close-wiiidow'd ejes, till evening-fall, 
And, in magnetic slumber, see it all. 

But not, though thus his modest lips have sung, 
From earth-built loins the godlike hero sprung. 
Where, in a sheltered grotto's mossy cove, 25 

Darkness and Silence nurs'd their ancient love, 
DuLNESS her sluggish limbs had laid to rest. 
Here Levity the drowsy maid compresl, 
What time the boy-god, wandering, hand in hand. 
With Idleness, along the wave-worn sand, 30 

(Their sport, to scare the sea-lark from her food, 
And skim with missile flint the rippled flood,) 

Thus on Meander's flow'ry margin lies 
Th' expiring swan, and as he sings he dies. 

{Rape of the Lock, Canto v. 65.) 

We might, we dare say, have found even more delectable passages 
in other Tales and Sketches of this great production ; but we have con- 
tented ourselves with looking here and there at this, and glancing over 
the final scenes of two others, and we conclude with the certainty that 
the interesting picture, here presented, of the young man stripped of his 
trowsers by the blast, and with a worm at his core, will induce all our 
readers to get the book for themselves and enjoy its elegance un- 
mutilated.* * * 

22. »^nd, in magnetic slumber, see it all] See our note to v. 260, Canto 
iii., which we have thus some reason to be proud of * * 

26. — nursed — ] We are sorry to see this word in the past tense. 
How many solemn pilgrimages had else been made, to visit the spot 
where the peerless Ruby was propagated! ** 

31. — sea-lark — ] One of the local names of a species of sand- 
piper, the Tringa Cinclus of Linne ; a well-known little bird, Avhich in 
spring and autumn is seen running along the edge of the water, on the 
banks of sandy rivers, with its tail in perpetual motion. * * 

* To make assurance, doubly sure, N. B. it is published by tliose gatherers of gar- 
bage, " the great bibliopoles/' as the Colonel gratefully cognominates them, the 
brothers Harper of New York. Price, we should suppose, some twenty-five cents. 



224 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Chance led them by the grotto's mouth of stone, 
And Curious Fancy drew him in alone. 

Two mortal nights the youthful couple toiPd, 35 
To mould the metal of the immortal child. 
But when three times nine moons, with languor kept, 
In DuLNESs' breast the callow babe had slept, 
Hypocrisy and Cant (twin-gossips these) 
The groaning goddess of her burden ease. 40 

Hugg'd in their lap, the skinny hope they shawl 
In amice old, then dab its lips with spawl, 

Ver. 35, 36. Two mortal nights the youthful couple toiVd, etc.] As Jove 
and the daughter of Electryon for the generation of Hercules. 
Some suppose, for the same reason ; namely, that greater materials were 
requisite for the mould of such a hero, and in order to make him of 
peculiar strength.* A conjecture very unnecessary. The time employ- 
ed was merely because of the slowness with which Dulness conducts 
all her imperfect operations, and of the superficial manner which dis- 
tinguishes those of Levitt. ** 

37, 38. But when three times nine moons, etc.] See latter part of the 
preceding note. * * 
41 - 46. Hugged in their lap, etc.] 

Ecce avia, aut metuens divum matertera, cunis 
Exemit puerum, frontemque, atque uda labella, 
Infami digito, et lustralibus ante salivis, 
Expiat, urentes oculos inhibere perita, 
Tunc manibus quatit, et spem macram supplice voto 
Nunc Licini in campos, nunc Crassi mittit in sedes : 
Hunc optent generum rex et regina: puellse 
Hunc rapiant : quicquid calcaverit hie, rosa fiat. 

Pers. ii. 31 — 38. 



Of the ancient superstitions observed at Rome, on the lustration of 
the newly -born infant, see Casaubon's copious commentary, pp. 200, 
etc., ed. Lond. 1647, — Pliny on the efficacy of fasting spittle, Hist. JVat. 

* — " in Alcumenae adulterio duas noctes Jupiter copulavit, ut magnae fortitudinis 
Hercules nasceretur. Hieron. adv. Vigil." Annot. in Plauti Ampliit. A. i. Sc. 
i, vers. 123. ed. Gronov. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 225 

And rain gay fortunes on its fuzzy head : — 
Through the wide world his virtues shall be spread ; 
Gold shall reward him, nuns his praises sing, 45 

And where he treads the purple thistle spring. 

Then simpering Impudence embrac'd the same. 
Not that pert, giglet, lizard-visag'd dame, 

xxviii, 7, ed. Berol. 1766, or Cap. 4. of the anc, edd. I am inclined to 
think, that the practice of the priests in the middle ages, at the adminis- 
tration of baptism, to rub with their saliva the nostrils and ears of the 
competents, as they were called, had its origin in this lustration of the 
Roman infants by their aunts and grandmamas. Casaubon hints at the 
practice, and seems to have been of the same opinion. Superstitions 
live by traditionary habit. When we were a boy at school, we remem- 
ber being admonished to put an eyelash in the hand, and the ferule of 
the master should break against it, not to speak of the more potent ear- 
wax (which Pliny says is good against the bite of serpents). Whence, 
the famous and cruel superstition, which the boys call pulling pinkies ^ is 
no doubt ancient too. * * 

42. — amice — ] " Amictus quo collum stringitur, et pectus tegitur, 
castitatevi interioris hominis designat : tegit enim cor, ne vanitnies cogi- 
iet ; stringet autem collum, ne inde ad linguam transeat mendacium.''^ 
[Bruno, cited at the word in Johnson's Dict.] — Dulness' gossips would 
seem to have used this sacerdotal wrapper for the inverse reason ; and 
with what effect, these pages have made or will make manifest, or at 
least it may be seen in the daily compositions of the hero. Anon. 

lb. — dah its lips with spawl] Not to keep off the evil eye, and oth- 
er witchery, as in the above verses of Persius, but to infuse into his 
spirits their own eloquence. Thus bees are fabled to have settled on 
the lips of Pindar, and touched them with honey. * * 

45, 46. — nuns his praises sing, — And where he treads the purple this- 
tle spring.] Some very judicious commentators have supposed this a 
prophetic allusion to the honors received at the Convent of the Hotel 
Bieu. The first part may be ; but for the concluding line, we regard it 
as simply declaring that every thing, in that future path of life which 
his great mother destined him to tread awhile on earth, should be ac- 
cording to his taste ; which is the same sort of wish with that of the 
gossips in Persius — quicquid calcaverit hie, rosajiat. * * 

48. —giglet — ] Shakspeare wsqs giglet as an adjective more than 
once: "giglet wench," etc. 
29 



226 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Whom Lust on Ignorance engender'd foul, 

But of high-dress'd Conceit sleek ambling foal ; so 

The same her subtle dam : whence oft, 't is plain. 

The sisters uterine, on earth mista'en. 

Usurp each other's pow'r o'er mortal hearts, 

And act, with either sex, both double parts. 

Women the first, her sister men adore ; 55 

This moulds jour fool, the other paints the whore. 

Then Impudence took up the imperial boy. 

And bore him to the mount which looks o'er Troy. 

Here, in a cave, secure by human fears. 

The goddess nurs'd the boy for five long years ; 60 

Ver. 57. — imperial boy,] Not imperial by a vague elogistic epithet, as 
Ernesti supposes, but as being the offspring of two deities that divide 
between them a great portion of the world. * * 

58. — Tsor] To readers out of the State of New York it may- 
be necessary to say, that this is the modern Trot above Albany, with 
its Ida, whose classical associations are so powerful that we are assur- 
ed by persons, with whom, as certainly as with the magnetizers, " fraud, 
deception, and imposture were entirely out of the question," that the lit- 
tle boys read Homer for pure pastime, and call their bread and butter 
ambrosia. * * 

69. Here, in a cave — etc.] Why she should nurse him here, instead 
of conveying him to her favorite haunts, has been explained in various 
ways. Of the two best explications, one is, that this was necessary on 
account of the singularly imbecile state of the infant, as shown in v. 71, 
&c. ; the other, that it was a part of that education which was to fit him for 
the part his mother destined him to play for the promotion of her own 
views among the children of men. The subsequent lines confirm 
either of these conjectures. * * 

60. The goddess nursed the boy for Jive long years.] As the men of 
the Silver Age were tied to their mothers' apron-string for a hundred 
years : — 

Ixurov fAiv 'Xods STicc ^u^a f/,»ri^i Kihvn 

'Er^iipiT araXXuv fiiya, vrittos ^ Iw o'iku. 
Hes. Op. }f D. \U, 115. {.Poet. Groec, ed. Lips. 1818. Tom. viii. p. 33.) 



CANTO FOURTH. 227 

(Not that her breast alone supplj'd his thirst ; 
A goat's brown udder minister'd at first ;) 
Taught him to fret the spider, snail, and toad. 
And twist long earth-worms from their strait abode. 
Hence, in the Tales^ sits grisly Horror bare, 65 

With blanched lip, strain'd eye, and bristled hair ; 

But, in the present case, the tedious nursing of the little hero could not 
be owing to any inferiority of a degenerated race, for he was the child of 
two deities, or demons, who, connate with the world, only terminate their 
superhuman existence in the shock of its destruction, and therefore he 
shared their nature, as is shown and explained elsewhere. We are con- 
sequently to suppose, that this long lactation was necessary to the perfec- 
tion of an animated structure which was to endure, (under whatever 
change of form, still to endure,) beyond the date of man's brief ages, 
and, moreover, that it was but in due course for an infant that had 
been for twenty-seven months in a foetal state: this, unless you em- 
brace the conjecture which we have given in note to v. 35, and suppose 
that his mother had enjoined on his nurse and her attendant goddess this 
mode of treatment, merely in the spirit in which she conducts all her 
operations. * * 

61, 62. [JVot that her breast alone supply^d his thirst ; — A goaVs brown 
udder minister''d at first ;) ] Why a goat at first ? The answer is found 
in a very simple hypothesis : that the goddess was not provided just at 
this juncture. Otherwise : — The long period of the hero's infancy would 
have drained even the lacteals of a goddess, unless an assistant had 
been taken ; and the hero was given first to the goat, that he might en- 
joy the milk of Impudence at a time when, being more mature, he would 
more thoroughly and readily imbibe all its virtues. 

Be which as it may, one thing is certain, that the hero displays the ad- 
vantages of this double nursing, combining in his mortal and immortal na- 
ture the qualities of both attendants. Nor may it be irrelevant to remark 
the coincidence between the infancy of Rubeta and that of the father of 
gods and men ; both suckled by the same fragrant animal, each in a 
cave, each in his Ida. Thus, begotten as Hercules, and reared as Ju- 
piter, what wonder that the immortal hero of the Vision should have 
shown himself to men the prodigy he is ! * * 

65. Hence, in the Tales, sits gristly Horror bare,'\ We should like to 
feel Rubeta's head, says an anonymous critic : with diminutive intellect, 
there must be tremendous destructiveness, to account for his love of 



228 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Hence too, the feet of vault and trapdoor fond ; 
And hence, the hand durst wield the mystic w^and. 
This, when the game was brought within his reach. 
Laid on his little breast or swaddled breech. 70 

For yet the child could neither see, nor crawl. 
No sound it utter'd, save melodious squawl. 
Or when, laid on its nursing-mother's teat. 
The infant wag would laugh the swelling globes to 
beat. 
Lull'd by the changeless song of a cascade, 75 

Whose silver Naiads near the grotto play'd. 
The god- born cherub, nearly all the day, 
Lay in the lap of Slumber, while away, 

skeleton-hands which drop blood upon an old Dutch dinner-plate, toma- 
hawked women whose " dark ringlets " were " ravished by the scalping- 
knife," and murdered tinmen, " horrible looking fellows " " whistling Yan- 
kee Doodle," " whose eyes gleamed like sparks of hell," and " whose 
horse, with three white feet," drove sleep from the eyelids of a master 
CoKRAD who was " unimpressible even by waking visions of bliss with 
the fair Christina Diefendorff," {Fye, thou dishonest Sathan!*) "in his 
warm embrace." Anojn. 

The fact is here accounted for, the expanding organ having been fed 
with these daily indulgences. * * 

74. The infant wag would laugh — etc.] This, as Giraldi remarks, 
was Levity's part in the little cherub, and showed him a true child of 
his vivacious sire. He might have added, that it was a promise of his 
future facetiousness : which is indeed implied in the phrase infant wag. 

P. S. Our remark is amply confirmed through the late discovery of 
the Cod. Passam., where the distich is written thus : 

Or when, press'd to the rosy dug, it joy'd to hit 
The soft-rebounding orb, and laugh'd, siveet budding wit I 

* * 

* From " Twelfth Niffht " ; A. iv. Sc. 2. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 229 

Away on the air, his foster-mother hies, 

Borne in a film by six blue-bottle flies, so 

With aid her darling votary to bless, 

And turns the rounce of Adam Waldie's press. 

For harm might never vv^rong that baby lone ; 

Around whose neck was hung the lucid stone, 

Toss'd by the knotted snakes in mystic ring. 85 

Her own dear mother caught it on the wing. 

And bore across the stream, with speed of light, 

The vengeful serpents pressing on her flight ; 



Ver. 82. — Adam Waldie — ] He is the printer and publisher* of the 
Am. Q,. Review, the printer, and editor I suppose, of a Journal of Belles 
Lettres, and the ditto factotum of various other publications of equal 
value. 

The text is illustrated further on in the Canto. * * 
84- 88. Around whose neck was hung the lucid stone, — Tossed by the 
knotted snakes, etc.] A druidical superstition, mentioned by Pliny. 
Remains of it are said to exist at the present day, in Wales, Scotland, 
and Germany. Perhaps the gilded beads, which we ourselves have 
seen hung with great solemnity, by very decent people, around the 
necks of children in some parts of New England, to prevent bleeding 
at the nose, are but another shape of the same precious amulet. Pliny's 
account of this famous serpent's egg is, that it is formed by the saliva 
and slime of a great number of snakes, which in the season of summer 
sociably meet and knot themselves together for the purpose. When 
formed, the mystic party toss it in the air, and the Druid who watches 
for it intercepts the treasure in a cloak, or blanket, before it can touch 
the ground. The happy owner then hurries away on a swift horse, 
pursued by the serpents till he shall have crossed a stream. The words 
of this excellent Mother Goose are as follow : — Prseterea est ovorum 
genus in magna Galliarum fama, omissum Grascis. Angues innumeri, 

* It is under this character, I should imagine, that he is at all mentioned in the Vis- 
ion. It is the hireling he employs, whoever the same may be, that is hit over his 
shoulder. The A/n. Q. Review, and the J. of B. L. are the two most impudent publi- 
cations (that are not newspapers) in America. * * 



230 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Which, desperate that they might not bruise her heels, 
Plung'd down the bank, and turn'd to great sea- 
eels. 90 



asstate convoluti, salivis faucium corporumque spumis artifici complexu 
glomerantur. Anguinum adpellatur. Druidse sibilis id dicunt in sub- 
lime jactari, sagoque oportere intercipi ne tellurem attingat. Profu- 
gere raptorem equo : serpentes enim insequi donee arceantur amnis 
alicujus interventu. [Hist. JVat. xxix. 12. ed. 1766.] He adds, that it 
was in great estimation for rendering the wearer superior in disputes.* 
Hence Rubeta's triumph in the argument with Bruno. 

However, what became of this stone when Ruby grew to manhood is 
not known. Some suppose that it remained still in his possession, and 
that it is the identical pebble which figures above the dexter side of the 
scroll in his royal achievement (see Cantoni. ver. 566.), while others add, 
that it is from the actual possession of this celestial gift, that the hero 
derives his most familiar appellation, — a name which one would rather 
have thought was owing to the denseness and perfect solidity of his 
brain. The matter is worthy of investigation, and it is to be hoped that 
the Antiq. Branch of the Hist. Soc. of the venerable State of New 
York will take it into their consideration. * * 

90. — turn'd to great sea-eels.] A transformation not so extraor- 
dinary as may at first appear, for Cupid of old made the congers and 
vipers very good friends. Achilles Tatius, in his romance of the 
Loves of Clitophon and Leucippe, (in the first Book, I think,f where 
the bashful hero begins to make court to his fair cousin,) tells the story 
of these famous anguilline amours : how the ardent viper stands, on his 
tail of course, on the shore by the sea, and hisses to his lady-love ; 
whereupon the tender conger comes out, all dripping, from her bed ; but 
knowing that her lover has, like Hamlet, something in him dangerous, 
the lady mounts a rock, until the viper has spit out all his venom and 
cleaned his teeth. . Pliny mentions casually the same fable, or rather 
alludes to it as a notion current with the vulgar, ^lian recounts it in 
full. In the same way, Aristotle, Oppian, and others. * * 

* So much so, that he accuses the Emperor Claudius of having made way with a 
Roman knight for its possession. " Ad victorias litium, ac regum aditus, mire lauda- 
tur : tantae vanitatis, ut, habentem id in lite, in sinu, equitem Romanum e Vocontiis a 
Dive Claudio Principe interemtum, non ob ahud sciam." Ibid. 

t P. S. It is in ihejirst Book, I find ; Sect, xvii, 'O £;^£j 6 rrjs yrj; d<pis, k. t. A. My 
memory has served me so faithfully in the note above, as to supersede the necessity 
of quoting the passage at length. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 231 

But when brown Ida's top was hoar with snow, 
She spread her hands before the infant's brow : 
The babe to breathing ivory was turn'd, 
And with the dormice slept till spring return'd ; 
When, crossing it again, she whisper'd, Wake, 95 
And broke the rest God's thunder might not shake. 

It chanc'd, that, near the hero's natal spot, 
A herdsman's wife, by fortune's timely lot. 
Was mother of a child (the country's talk). 
Which knew nor sight, nor speech, nor yet could 
walk; 100 

Of the same age ; and, strangest part of all ! 
Whose very gender was equivocal. ,9 



93, 94. The hahe to breathing ivory was turned, — And with the dor- 
mice slept till spring returned ;] A new wonder ! Animal Magnetism 
owes not its origin to Mesmer nor its perfection to Dr. Capon. Here 
we see the soporific charm employed by the true inventor, Impudence 
the daughter of Ignorance. We shall come to further discoveries 
presently. By the way, the practice of this great science is of ancient 
date : the Sleeping Beauty, she who lay for a hundred years in the 
enchanted bower, was simply in a state of magnetic slumber ; and the 
Prince who woke her, what was he but some potent magnetizer, some 
great CapOx\, or still greater Ruby, whose breast was in magnetic 
affinity with hers ? * * 

95. When, crossing it again, she whispered, Wake, — And broke the rest, 
etc.] As corroborative of our last note, with regard to the celestial origin 
of Animal Magnetism, we quote the following passage from the prodigy 
of Letters : — " Dr. Capron [Capon ?] now again willed her away from 
me, resumed his control, and by the peculiar mental process of Animal 
Magnetism, together with a few brushes of his hand over her forehead, 
awoke her,^' (p. 48,) from a slumber "so profound," as the Letter-writer 
observes on p. 38, " that the discharge of a park of artillery would not 
disturb her.''^ * * 



232 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Her babe unwean'd, the mother was drawn dry, 

And strain'd a point to nurse her fancy'd boy. 

For this a large full-bosom'd quean was hired, 105 

Whose buxom birth Vulgarity had sired. 

What time, beneath an elm's love-sheltering tree, 

A milkmaid stoop'd to ease her prurient knee. 

The god delighted spy'd her ruddy charms, 

And clasp'd the fragrant beauty in his arms. no 

From her fresh fount the backward babe was fed. 

And shar'd, at night, her modest truckle-bed. 

Now when five times, around the central sun, 
Spurr'd by the Hours, the circling Years had run, 
The immortal nurse, whom borrow'd features hide, ns 
Her mortal sister's pallet stood beside. 
'T was the last hour before the dead of night ; 
But, through a window, stream'd the round moon's 

light, 
And show'd the nurse, supine, in slumber deep, 
Snoring to keep her little charge asleep. 120 

An alliaceous odor, floating o'er her. 
The goddess told her step-niece lay before her. 
Whom, softly touching, she awoke, and said : — 

And canst thou, careless, keep thy idle bed ? 



Ver. 116. — sister — ] In respect of office merely ; for Vulgarity is 
only the son of Ignorance, which therefore would make the relation 
between the nursing-mothers that of aunt and niece. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 233 

Lo, on his straw, beside the mow of hay, 125 

My brother waits thee ! Thus he bade me say : — 
Be not too long in coming ; Devil take 
His soul, if he would lie all night awake ! 
Haste thee, O haste ! thy Scipio waits his queen : 
Thrice hath he in the horsepond wash'd him 
clean. 130 

Soft yawn'd the fair, and, rubbing hard her eyes, 
Sprang from the sheets, and bar'd two lily thighs. 
She saw the false one's jetty skin and hair, 
And deem'd her cowboy's sister waited there. 
I go, (she said ;) but Lord ! 't would serve him 
right, 135 

To let the saucy villain snore all night. 
Stay, — where 's my shift ? O here ! I run— I fly. 
JuDE, take my place, for fear the baby cry. 

She shot the door. The artful goddess smiPd, 
Sprang through the roof, and bore away the child. 140 
In Ida's cave she laid the little head. 
And bearing back the god-born, in its stead, 
Breath'd on his face, as through the air they past, 
And bade his features take the mortal's cast. 



Ver. 144. And hade his features take the mortars cast.] Considered by- 
many to be altogether allegorical and poetical. Undoubtedly the whole 
story of the birth and education of Rubeta will bear such an explana- 
tion ; but, for ourselves, we should deem it heresy to interpret otherwise 
than literally any the least particular of this marvellous narrative : for 
how else, as we have already intimated, could we account for the mira- 
30 



234 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Thus DuLNESS wilPd. She, plotting projects deep, 
Rapt in the care profound of solemn sleep, 146 

Design'd her darling son should prop the throne, 
And wield his father's sceptre and her own. 
Hatch novel follies in his mossy brain, 
And add new subjects to her leaden reign. i50 

As the dull earth ne'er images the sun. 
Nor jet those orbs which stud night's dimmer noon. 
Yet oft shall heaven's fantastic colors show 
The forms of things which grace the world below ; 
So that, at sunset, in our brilliant clime, 155 

The mottled clouds, oft ridg'd and ribb'd sublime, 
Depict the wave-wash'd beach, while seems to be 
The expanse beneath soft plain of summer's sea ; 
Even thus, may beings of celestial birth 
Assume the gross, and sensual shapes of earth ; 160 
And thus, whom two immortal sp'rits had fram'd 
Bore, from that hour, man's visage unasham'd. 
The vulgar mouth, pert eye, and stupid brow. 
Which loving Church-street sees him wearing now ; 
Himself deceived ; though sometimes intuition les 
Gives him strange inklings of his true condition. 

cles which New York, which Montreal, which Providence, has wit- 
nessed wrought by this one being, — poet, historian, novelist, lecturer, 
editor, virtuoso, vindicator of aspersed virginity, neophyte and propagator 
in and of the dark science of animal magnetism, colonel of a trainband 
regiment disbanded, grand nincompoop, &-c. &c. &-c. ? Anon. 

166. — strange inklings of his true condition.] See our notes to v. 260, 
and 273 of Canto iii. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 235 

But the true tadpole of the neatherd's loins 
The simpering goddess in the cave confines 
For twelve score moons. It felt not time's advance, 
Rapt through all seasons in magnetic trance ; 170 

But sightless, speechless, all but sexless, lay, 
A sluggish mass of animated clay. 
Then was it borne to Roger Williams' bay. 
Here, taking sex and speech, the changeling grew, 
DuLNESs' delight, and taught men follies new. 175 
For though, by long seclusion from the light. 
Its visual orbs had never perfect sight, 
Kind Impudence soon turn'd that loss to gain. 
And better organs planted in the brain, 

Ver. 173. — to Roger Williams' bay.] Narraganset bay. The city of 
Providence is evidently here designated, of which Roger Williams 
was the first settler. * * 

176, 177. — by long seclusion from the light, — Its visual orbs 
had never perfect sight,] The cause of Lorain^'s blindness (for there 
can be no question that the herdsman's child, whose wonderful history 
is given in these pages, is " the young lady of delicate mind and man- 
ners, modest and diffident," and tender withal, of the Letter on An. 
Magn.,) the cause ofLoRAiNA's blindness is not therefore as Rubeta, 
deceived by his great medical knowledge, assumes it to be, an amau- 
rosis of paralytic character, the consequence of the fall of an iron 
weight of several pounds from a considerable elevation on the crown of her 
head (see p. 10 of the Letter), and which entirely deprived her of her rea- 
son for several months, in order to endow it, in the interim, with omnipo- 
tent powers, though it has something certainly to do with neurology* 

179. — planted belter organs in the brain,] The reason why the blind 

* See Letter, Sz,c., where that great etymologist, and rival of Petronius in the 
pure use of English, employs the term neurology in a sense which we hope to see 
adopted by all correct writers : for example : '' Animal Magnetism has from the first 
been prescribed by the practisers of the art in cases of neurology." * * 



236 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Taught her, (for now the frog wore woman's 

clothes,) 180 

To see men's bowels through their button'd hose, 
Use priest and layman for her pliant tools, 
And make dull Capons of a score of fools. 



prophetess, in order to see a picture, held it over the crown of her head, 
as is told in the Letter. It is a great happiness to us, that thus, in our 
office of Editor of this poem, we find it in our power to throw light upon 
the pages of another work Avhich we really consider the most surprising 
production of the age. * * 

181. To see meii's bowels through their button'd hose,] This is a miracle 
which the Letter on An. Magn. does not tell us was performed by Lo- 
RAiNA, but by another lady of magnetic affinities. The Appendix to the 
first edition of that luminous work makes one Dr. Brownell, of Provi- 
dence, tell a story of this latter somnambulist, then at his house, who 
discovered the secret diseases of one of his patients, though the latter 
was " more than a quarter of a mile" off. Among other things, says the 
sage Doctor, " while I was gone into the library, she said to a lady pres- 
ent, Every once in a while 1 saw fluids pass from his stomach into his 
bowels." (p. 65.) This is really ravishing news for the world of science ; 
for now shall there be, no longer, bars to human discovery in the arca- 
na of nature ; but while Loraina is sent to Egypt to finish the work 
begun by the unfortunate Champollion, who, alas ! could not, like her, 
read what is legible only to the " eye of Omnipotence, " this maid of the 
appendix shall inspect the process of generation, and man no more be 
analyzed into tadpoles at the will of a Leuwenhoek, or fluctuate in 
doubts what part his mother furnished of his composition. * * 

By the by, it is a little surprising, that Drs. Capron, Brownell & 
Co. should not employ these ladies in their special practice. Can it be 
that they fear the cure of diseases would be too speedy ; or that they 
should have no loophole to creep out at, in case they misapplied the 
remedy ? * * 

The latter possibility cannot exist ; for the same omniscience that dis- 
covered the diseases would of course have prescribed the exact remedy. 
It is a shame, indeed, that men should have their lungs explored with 
stethoscopes and their bladders searched by sounds, when a nice young 
woman, " modest and diffident," can find their tubercles and feel their 
stones, by simply going to sleep. Corr. 

83. — Capons — ] Bentley writes this word with a small c, which 



CANTO FOURTH. 237 

Meantime the little hero (glad surprise !) 
Op'd, in the humble cot, his glowing eyes ; 185 

Next taught his flaccid limbs to know the ground ; 
And his lips last, to form the vocal sound. 
Wondrous his progress then ! 'T is said he sneer'd. 
Six months before his cutting-teeth appear'd ; 
And when the nurse would teach her mammet Ma, lOO 
It laugh'd outright ! and softly bleated, Baa ! 
That the pleas'd dame exclaim'd, in honest glee, — 
This witty boy will be the death of me ! 

would make of the passage, if not nonsense, at least no very precise 
sense. Capon is undoubtedly the name of some eminent pupil in the 
magnetic art. In the Letter on An. Magn., the name and style of the 
great thumber of Loraina is Dr. Capron. * * 

191. hltated Baa ! ] Supposed by some to be the recollection of his 
first ideas, the impression of the voice of his Amalthea, now called up 
by the similarity of sound between what his present nurse would teach 
him and what he had often heard from the former ; by others (and these 
would write it Bah ! ) to be in contempt of a title which he knew was 
wrongfully applied to the wife of the herdsman. The first hypothesis is 
at least plausible ; the latter, however apparently approved by the first 
hemistich, cannot be sustained by the previous text, for in v. 165 we 
have " Himself deceived." For our own part, we incline to the idea of 
the honest nurse, and consider it the first verbal sally of that playful fan- 
cy, which, in after days, became the delight and wonder of Manhattan. 
Thus does the hero (whose first lustre is to be counted but as the first 
twelve months of ordinary infants) stand foremost in the list of exam- 
ples of precocious genius ; greater than Heinecken himself, who at 
fourteen months knew the whole Bible, and at four years could talk di- 
vinity, repeat hymns innumerable, and discourse most fluently and un- 
derstandingly in three languages besides low Dutch ; greater, inasmuch 
as wit is a higher and rarer quality than a strong memory and powers of 
theological ratiocination, and as, unlike to Heinecken, who met the fate 
of all antedated talent, the hero of the Vision has been constantly ad- 
vancing in every qualification which these pages show to have adorned 
his diaper, and shed a lustre round his red-sized cradle. * 



238 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

O might we tell the fancy'd mother's care, 
The nurse's pains, to rear the immortals' heir ! 195 
How on his face a paper mask was tj'd, 
To keep his eyes from turning of one side, 
Like marry'd pair, or steers before a load. 
That pull two ways, although they keep one road. 
How when, in travail with its teeming gum, 200 

The babe sought solace from obstetric thumb, 
They rubb'd the harden'd ridge, to allay the itch, 
With pig's brains and the milk of pupping bitch. 
And round its neck a viper's tooth suspended. 
Which brought out twins at once, as was intended. 205 



Ver. 197. To keep his eyes from turning of one side,'] Paul of tEgina, and 
after him Ambrose Pare, according to Mauriceau, recommended that 
a mask perforated with two small holes for the eyes should be put upon 
the face of an infant affected with obliquity of vision, who would thus be 
compelled to look straight before him. It was probably the adoption of 
this ingenious contrivance, (which, but for the instance in the text, we 
should hardly have thought would succeed, except with children without 
hands, or much less restless than any we ever begot,) it was probably 
the adoption of this contrivance which has given the hero that remarka- 
ble sharpness of vision, which we can only describe, to those who have 
not had the felicity of seeing hira, as a gimld-expression, or by compar- 
ing it to the glowworm-glimmer in the eye of that very respectable, and 
philosophical animal, which we may observe, in the kennels, so generous- 
ly employed in removing the garbage and ordure that would otherwise 
offend us. It is a shrewd terebracious sort of twinkle, possessed by no 
other eye in creation, except that of the animal we have mentioned, and 
the visual orbs of some millions of peculiar beings of congenial disposi- 
tion and equal intellectual capacity. * * 

202 - 205. T/iey rubbed the hardened ridge to allay the itch, — With pig's 
brains and the mUk — etc. etc.] " There are many remedies, which di- 
vers persons assert have a particular property to help the cutting of the 
teeth, as rubbing them with bitches' milk, hares' or pigs' brains, and hang- 



CANTO FOURTH. 239 

How too, the child to scare from childish tipple, 
When Nurse put mourning on her russet nipple. 
The dauntless godling still admir'd the teat. 
Till his lips found the bitter of the cheat. 
More to divulge the modest Muse denies, 210 

And, blushing, spreads both hands before her ejes. 
This only may she add: — the nurse, 't is told. 
Was amorous, and had hair like ruddy gold. ' 
Hence, with his milk, the suckling drew, though 

meek, 
A love of ladies, and satiric pique. 215 

ing a viper's tooth about the neck of the child, and other such like 
trifles, etc." 

Mauriceau, by Chamberlen, who observes of the pigs' brains, that 
" they may and do soften the gums." (p. 346, 8th ed.) * * 

208. — still admired the teat,] It is delightful to find, that even at this 
tender age the hero showed himself superior to vulgar prejudice. We 
have seen that the color of the skin makes no difference with the liberal 
RuBETA, (Canto iii. v. 2*^9, and note,) except it be that he prefers the 
deep grain Sietta^s houries boast : in accordance with which preference 
many editions read " more admir'd" for the phrase in the text. * * 

215. A love of ladies, and satiric pique.] Rapin thinks that his primi- 
tive nursing-mother, the goat, had more to do with the first of these 
qualities, or propensities, than the red-haired nurse. For the last, it 
will surprise the reader ; who will hardly believe that so gentle and un- 
offending a being could have any thing like pique or sarcasm in his dis- 
position. But we have it twice on his own authority. Thus, speaking of 
his first impressions of animal magnetism, he says (p. 7) : "I was not 
only an unbeliever, but a satirist of the whole affair." We know that it 
will be said, by those who differ from us, that this is merely Rubeta's 
peculiar phraseology, and is the same as in ordinary language would be 
termed, a satirizer of the whole affair ; but then we have that magnifi- 
cent passage (pp. 54, 55) which we have quoted at v. 628, 629, of the 
preceding Canto. * * 



240 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

But lo ! the hero wean'd. The nurse yet staj'd ; 
For SciPio's sake 't is thought, — the babe's, she 

said. 
Rather than leave that dear, cherubic face, 
She 'd stoop, though loath, and take black Judith's 

place ; 
Her pay, one monthly pound and daily feed; 220 

Her pleasure all, to teach the darling read. 

Christina spoke ; and from that hour, 't is clear. 
No hand but Christy's catechiz'd his rear : 

Ver. 219. — black Judith — ] The sister of Scipio, as we have seen 
in a preceding verse : 

" JuDE, take my place, for fear the baby cry." ^ * 

220. — pound — ] Two dollars and a half. In the days of Rubeta's 
infancy, all calculations were made in pounds, shillings, and pence ; nor 
is the practice yet wholly abolished, thanks to the mint, which still allows 
the old Spanish real and soldo to circulate, though, for all the purposes 
of money, our national coin is the best, as being the simplest of compu- 
tation, in the Avorld.* * * 

222. Christina — ] 

Tu quoque litoribus nostris, vEneia nutrix, 
^ternam moriens famam, Caieta, dedisti, 
says Virgil (.-En. vii. 1, 2). With a like gratitude, the modern ^Eneas 
has consecrated the memory of his foster mother, the red-haired daugh- 
ter of Vulgarity ; for who else can be " the fair Christina" that figures 
in his Talts and Skelches ? See note to v. 65. * * 

And the young Dutchman therefore " who was inaccessible to wak- 
ing visions of bliss, e/c." was the gallant Scipio ! What a privilege is 
theirs, the great men who thus immortalize their favorites ! Corr. 

223. JVb hand but Christy^s catechiz'd his reai',] The extent of Rube- 

* Not to say that any inequality we can level in the customs of the several States 
makes the structure of the Union still more stable. At present, a person who goes 
from our own part of the country lo the State of New York, from New York to 
Pennsylvania, from Pennsylvania to the Southern States, feels that he is a 
stranger, and is perceived to be such, the moment he enters a shop. In cents we are 
one people, but in pence we are a league. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 241 

She mark'd the book ; she shap'd his accents wild ; 
And, when he slaughter'd sense, 't was Christy 
smiPd. 225 

Swart SciPio added many a greasy jest. 
For still the boy lov'd oral wisdom best. 
Nay, books would throw him often into rage. 
Then would he reach, to tear the slabber'd page, 
Or scratch the letters with his dirt-grim'd nails. 230 
Except his nurse's book of smutty tales. 
This, from the first, he took in better part ; 
And when his Helot breech was taught to smart, 
He threw his Reader by, and got them all by heart. 

ta's learning is therefore no longer to be wondered at, though universal 
as the 21st verse of the 7th chapter of Ezra, — which comprises the en- 
tire alphabet. ** 

226. Swart Scipio added many a greasy jest : ] Of which the influence 
is still seen. .S'ee the wV. Y. Comm. Jldv. once or twice a week ; or, for 
the present, the examples in Canto 1st, at v. 515, 516; also in Canto 4th, 
at V. 713. When a man takes the trouble to cull such flowers to dec- 
orate the table of his ordinary, his love for Flora (everybody knows 
what the rites of this goddess were, and by what sort of persons they 
were celebrated,) must be strong indeed. But, early imbued from the 
source above-named with a love of facetiousness, or having it innate 
from his goddess-mother, it would be difficult for Rubeta to resist an 
occasion for its indulgence ; and it will be seen anon that this delightful 
pleasantry of disposition is one of the hero's chief characteristics. 

A^ON. 

231. Except his nurse's book of smutty tal€s.'\ Consult the references 
of the last note. * * 

233, 234. And when — etc. etc.] A degree of spirit which foreshadow- 
ed the future hero of the vaults, of whom the Abbess said: 

Blest, who dar'st fathom any jakes profound, etc. ! 

Canto iii. v. 414. * * 

234. — Reader — ] Rom. ed. Grammar : less correctly : for it is evi- 
dent, that the hero never opened a grammar in his life ; not to say that 

31 



24^ THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Now, when the Grand Absurd to age was grown, 235 
And his red muzzle glisten'd with the down. 
His mother, Dulness, started from her rest, 
And thus her handmaid Impudence address'd : — 

Go, favor'd of thy mistress, seek my son, 
Thy heart's most cherish'd darling, as our own. 240 
Fill'd with his sire's gay spirit, mix'd with mine. 
And radiant with the sparkling grace of thine, 
Rich too in gifts his birthday-friends bestow. 
Cant's honey drawl. Hypocrisy's smooth brow. 
With all those minor charms, of head and heart, 245 
Christina's care and SciPio's lore impart, 
Now is he ripe to take the part which Fate 
Assigns him, and assume my sceptred state, 
Rule o'er Manhattan's imbecile and blind. 
And be to it what I am to mankind. 250 

the daughter of Vulgarity would hardly be tlie one to teach it, even 
were she able. Nannius. 
Reader, unquestionably : for what should a genius do with grammar ? 

235. — Grand Absurd — ] Considered by all the commentators, with 
one dissenting voice, as the proper title of the heir-apparent of Levity 
and Dulness (see note on v. 255) ; but that dissenting voice is the voice 
of Jos. ScALiGER, who regards the expression simply as prospectively 
indicative of Rubeta's greatness ; like the title hero, which is applied 
to him while yet at the breast. * * 

235, 236. JSfoio wheii the Grand Absurd to age was grown, — And his 
red muzzle glisten'^d with the doivn,] By which it appears, that the hero 
attained not to puberty till his one-and-twentieth year ; a slowness of 
growth to be expected, considering the womb from which he sprung, 
and that at five years he was yet at the breast, and in the semi-sentient 
state of a newly-littered puppy. Some, however, make the second line 
of the distich but an amplification of the first, and read : 

And bristled on his cheek the yellow down. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 243 

The Mighty Mother said, nor adding more, 
Sunk on her couch, and soon was heard to snore. 

But the pert goddess wing'd her eager flight 
Swift through the void, till Hudson saw her light 
Where on his banks the full-grown infant lay, 255 
And gaz'd, with darken'd eyes, his soul away. 
All as a dame who liv'd the homestead nigh. 
By jealous neighbours mark'd with scornful eye, 
Th' immortal stood ; in dress, in paint the same. 
She look'd a worn-out mother of the game. 260 

Thrice his patch'd breeches and her slipper meet. 
Ere rose the hero to his shoeless feet: 
When thus began the daughter of Conceit: — 

Ver. 251. The Mighty Mother — ] A term borrowed from Dryden, and 
applied to this same divinity, by Pope. 

255. -- infant — ] Great dispute exists with regard to this term : some 
consider it as applied to the hero as heir to the joint empire of Lev- 
ity and DuLNESS, and write it therefore with a capital /; while others m- 
sist, that it alludes to his perfect innocence, and the virginal vacuity of 
his mind, at this period of life : though how this latter sense can accord 
with what his imperial mother has said of the prince immediately above 
is not easily seen. Perhaps it is only intended to allude to his freedom 
from all practical vice at this first stage of manhood, or to the seemmg 
nature of his amusement, as at the moment when the messenger-goddess 
finds him ; for though really rapt in the most sublime of contemplations, 
and in the most studious of abstractions, yet externally this would not 
appear, and we find that even the goddess, in her assumed character, 
addresses him reproachfully. Perhaps, after all, it would be better to 
read, with Valla, ^ ^ 

Where on his mountain-hanks the hero lay. 
256. And gazW, ivith darken'd eyes, his soul away.] As described in 
V 19 - 22: a partial abstraction which we cannot condemn as idle, since 
to it the world is indebted for its highest model of the sublime and its 
most bewitching pattern of the beautiful. * * 

260. She look'd a worn-out mother of the game.] Here we have the 
goddess usurping the part of her sister, as is told in v. 53. 



244 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

For shame ! so great a boy, and loll supine ! 
I would do something were my limbs as thine. 265 

Responsive star'd the youth, so soft a stare 
The goddess would have kiss'd him, did she dare, 
But simply tapp'd his fuzzy, sun-burnt cheek : — 
Fortune, (she adds,) my son, is still to seek. 
Would'st like to eat white bread, to roll in riches, 270 
And have an unpatch'd bottom to thy breeches ? 

Darn'd if I won't ! (the ready wit reply'd ;) 
And many another handsome thing beside. 

Ver. 262. — shoeless feet .•] Not, as the miracle of learning * would have 
it, in allusion to the neglected and vagabond condition of the hero's 
youth, but as simply indicating the simplicity of those early times, (of 
which, alas ! few vestiges remain, even in the villages of Ulster,) 
when people threw no broken bottles in the road, and slioes, as an un- 
necessary protection, were considered' an effeminating luxury. ** 

267. — kissed him, did she dare,] In the copy left by Sanadon, and 
now in the King's library at Paris, there is a marginal note, in which 
that able Jesuit observes, that the hero's face was probably too dirty, as 
is commonly the case with idle boys. We would rather, however, con- 
sider it an awful reverence, on the part of the goddess, which would not 
permit her to take a liberty with the person of the son and heir of her 
superior, whom she saw already, in anticipation, invested with the high 
honors to which he afterwards attained. * * 

If we may be permitted the correction, such a feeling could never 
possibly be known to the pert daughter of Conceit and Ignorance. 
She probably refrained because she was disguised in no very attractive 
person, if we may judge from what is said in v. 260, and though Rubeta 
may, at that early day, have glowed with much of the ardor which 
inflames his maturer age towards the lovely of Eve's daughters, it is 
questionable whether he had ever any particular partiality to the old, 
the " past age," as he calls them in the " Visit." Corr. 

Ver. 272. Darned — ] An elegant mode of asseveration used by Rubeta, 
and probably derived from his intimacy with the lover of Christina. 

*Salmasius. The titulary panegyric of a friendly contemporary; himself of no vul- 
gar erudition. *** 



CANTO FOURTH. 245 

Hie to Manhattan then : there learn what 's life : 
Not ty'd for ever to a herdsman's wife. 275 

If he thou deem'st thy sire should say thee nay, 
Take up thy sack, and fairly run away. 

That 's what Scip says. How monstrous like 
you be ! 
Only you 're fair, and twice as fine as he. 

Ah ! (cry'd the pert transform'd, overcome with 
joy,) 

How all his mother festers in this boy ! 

Know, lovely offspring of an endless line. 

No common fate of vulgar life is thine. 

Go seek the mighty city. This I swear, 

There crawls no dirty thing shall match thee there! 285 

Yet should thy mother fail thee, in that hour 

Invoke Hypocrisy and Cant's twin power : 

Their aid, thy father's blood, shall be enough 

To prove thee fashion'd of right vulgar stuff. 

For an example in the most ornate of his compositions, see the scene we 
have cited at v. 511, 512, 513, Canto iii. * * 

76. —if I won't ! — ] Bentlet, to plaster Priscian, would amend 
the line thus : 

Darn'd if 1 wouldn't then! the wit reply' d. 
See the note to v. 234. * * 

282. — endless line, ] i. e. immortal. 

Vet Schol. 
Endless line, i. e., the race of fools. 

Britannicus. 
The learned Italian evidently regards the dialogue between Impu- 
dence and her fosterchild as belonging to that allegory, to which all 
machinery may be reduced where it is not defective, the Dignus vin- 
dice nodus to the contrary notwithstanding. * * 
Ver. 288. — thy father's blood, — ] Levity is at this very day the chief 



246 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Go, court success ; thank Heaven thou 'rt void of 
brain ; 290 

What gravels other knaves shall prove thy gain. 
Cant, quibble, lie, recant ; be not afraid ; 
DuLNESS shall save thee, Impudence will aid. 

She said, leap'd o'er a stump, and, swift as light, 
Shot through the furze, and straight was out of 
sight. 295 

Bewilder'd, gaz'd the youth with all his eyes ; 
He marvelPd much to find a frock so wise ; 
But watch'd its motions as it clear'd the stump. 
And knew the goddess by her quivering rump. 
Why what a witch! (he cry'd:) To Scip I '11 hie; 300 
And if he bid me, — father mine, good-bye ! 

ingredient in the compositions of this wonderful and various being. 
See, usquequaque, N. Y. Comra. Adv. * * 

290. — thank Heaven — ] Bentley thinks this a very strange 
expression for Impudence, and proposes to read, for " Heaven," Fate. 
We think quite the contrary, — that it is the very expression Impudence 
would be most likely to use. And, after all, it is saying no more than 
thank your stars ; for why should the daughter of Conceit and Igno- 
rance use that seriously which nobody else ever thinks of so doing ? 

300. — witch — ] J. C^s. ScALiGER would spell this word with 
6 : but, besides that such an expression would be quite out of character 
with RuBETA, who we cannot doubt displayed the same reverential at- 
tachment, though in a minor degree, to the sex in his youth, that we see 
give beauty and grace to his riper years, (for we have found the ele- 
ments of every other quality of his manhood very plainly at work in his 
infancy and adolescence,) besides this, unless we retain the reading in 
the text, what becomes of the assertion in the preceding line ? for that 
the word goddess, there used, is perfectly synonomous with witch, must 
appear to every one who reflects that the youth's instructors were Chris- 
tina and SciPio only. ** 



CANTO FOURTH. 247 

But sire and dam the impelling Fates obey, 
And speed the future newsman on his way. 
Two shirts, a hat, a razor for his lip, 
And three clipp'd shillings in a dog-skin scrip, 305 
A pair of brogues that lov'd his ample feet. 
And lo ! Loraina's destin'd dupe complete ! 
His bran-new kersey not became him more, 
Than did his form the kersey which it wore : 
If to his share some female errors fall, 310 

Look on his back, and you '11 forget them all. 

300. — to Scip 1 ni hie.] Beautiful and affecting trait of gratitude ! 
which could only have been displayed by our Manhattanese iEneas. 
He forgets not, in his puberty and adolescence, the friend of his child- 
hood, but flies to consult him in the very first dilemma. * * 

Jb, _ jrhy what a witch! etc. — ] As this is the last sample, with 
which we are indulged, of the hero's juvenile dialogue, we cannot quit it 
without remarking upon the extraordinary simplicity, and infantile inno- 
cence, it developes in the "god-born" at one-and-twenty : in whose 
language through this entire scene we discover the seeds, as it were, of 
that elegant, yet unaffected oratory, which distinguishes the well-known 
lecturer, and the sublime author of the Mijsterious Bridal. * * 

302. _ sire and dam — ] That is, the herdsman and his wife. What 
a satisfaction this must have been to the pious feelings of the young 
Trojan, who otherwise would have found himself forced to go without 
it, and without the advantage of the handsome outfit inventoried in the 
subsequent verses ! * * 

306. — loD'd — ] SuhohscurL Lege, meo periculo, wrung. 

Gr^vius. 

307. And lo! Loraina's destined dupe complete!] We are disposed 
to consider this an interpolation, written over an obliterated passage : 
the more so, that Pierius assures us, that all the ancient editions have, 

And lo ! the god-born, goddess-nursed, complete .' 
and we are told that the Cod. Passamaq., the most perfect MS. yet dis- 
covered, has the line distinctly Avritten thus : 

And lo ! the god-horn pilgrim, stands complete ! * * 



248 THE VISION OF RUBETA, 

Even SciPio's self admir'd the long-taiPd coat, 
And shouted w^hen he savi^ his chum afloat. 

The fare is paid ; the herdsman bids adieu ; 
Swift-flashing from the wharf, the thundering steam- 
er flew. 315 
Pleas'd Impudence, array'd in porter's guise, 
Perch'd on a log, the fated voyage eyes. 
Red Vulcan sw^eated at each dripping wheel, 
And the glad Naiads urg'd the roaring keel. 

Now DuLNESS, careful mother, upside down 320 
Had turn'd the brainpan of an Orange clown. 
Who, thus befogg'd, an evening print had bought, 
To pass the hours, innocent of thought. 
Egg'd by his mother's busy go-between, 
(Who o'er her boy now hover'd, though unseen,) 325 
His heels the god-born laid athwart a stool. 
And begg'd the paper of his brother-fool. 

Ver. 310, 311. If to his share — etc. ] Pope. 

If to her share some female errors fall, 
Look on her face, and you '11 forget them all. 

Rape of the L. Cto. ii. 17, 18. 
311. Look on his back,] Not because of the coat, as some have idly 
conjectured. The back of the hero is in that interesting- condition, in 
which ladies wish to be who are lawfully married : his shoulder, as Biron 
says,* is with child. Some editions, however, read mouth, others eyes. 
All three expressions are equally good, and for an equal reason. * * 
322. — befogged — ] Not English, I think, though analogical. * * 
326. His heels — athivart a stool, ] The approved fashion, in every 
country, with the nurslings of the daughter of Conceit and Ignor- 
ance, and by them mistaken for independence. Whence Mrs. Trol- 

* Love's Labo7-'s Lost, A. iv. Sc. 3. 



CANTO FOURTH. 249 

O who may tell the immortal youth's surprise, 
The joy which now flash'd cinders from his eyes ! 
Not lover when he finds his mistress warm, 330 

Not rag-wrapt rascal shelter'd from a storm. 
Not Colon when he made the land ahead, 
Not twinning mothers safely brought to bed. 
Not Flaccus, when, by King's dogmatic nod, 
He found himself a rhymster spite of God, 335 

Such transport of delight can feel, e'er felt. 
As thrill'd the immortal when the news he spelt: 
For here he found such ribaldry in use. 
Such wholesale falsehood, such obscene abuse, 
Right set at naught, and decency defy'd, 340 

He deem'd he listen'd while his SciPio ly'd. 
This ! (said he to himself,) this ! be to me 
Pattern and guide ! My trade I see, I see ! 

LOPPE and congeners, who, by reason of the very general habit of tra- 
velling among us, and the uniformity of prices, saw more of that class 
in America than they could possibly meet in their own country, where 
the people are less locomotive, and steamboats are not dtmocraiized, 
would have it to be an elegance peculiar to republican citizens. * * 

327. — hrother-fool. ] The remark made at v. 307 applies here, but 
we have not the same means of correcting the text. * * 

334. — Flaccus — ] A ridiculous contributor to the N. Y. American, 
of whom by and by. 

343. — My trade, etc. ] Not of an editor ; for, as it will presently ap- 
pear, it was some time before his ambition ventured such a flight : he 
read with wonder the delightful scurrility of the paper, which was pro- 
bably some leading political journal, (for in those days the parties of 
Federalists and Democrats ran furiously high, and were, if possible, 
more inveterate in abuse of each other, than the present Whig and 
Tory factions, so called ;) he read ; and he admired an art which enables 
32 



250 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

O tedious bark ! When, when shall I begin ! 

Spit at Discretion, and set types for Sin ! 345 

Pleas'd heard the hovering Spirit, softly smil'd, 
Breath'd all her virtues on her foster-child, 
Her mission done, the vapor-float forsook, 
And cross'd the Hudson in a cloud of smoke, 
Skimm'd o'er the cities and the fields of men, 35o 
Till reach'd the town of pertinacious Penn, 
Then whirl'd through Seventh and broad Chestnut 

streets. 
And once more nestled in her Waldie's sheets. 

Fast by the dike, where frown the granite eaves 
Of the huge dome Manhattan rears for thieves, 355 



men to put such things on paper ; and from this hour his fate was sealed, 
and the future newsman determined to turn compositor, or at least to 
play the devil. From such trivial causes the mightiest events in the 
lives of all great men deduce their ultimate origin ; even as the sources 
of the largest rivers are the slender rivulet, and the little noisy torrent, 
which wear themselves an humble channel beneath the shadows of the 
mountain-forest. * * 

342 - 345. This ! said he to himself, etc.] We may observe here the 
effect of inspiration. He, who but a day or two back was but a boy and 
talked of Scip, now, inflamed by the prospect of his glorious art, takes 
upon him the language of a man, and shares, for the moment, the power 
of expression which passion gives to the most vulgar spirit. Therefore 
Rapin, when he condemns this passage as unnatural, inconsistent with 
the language of the youthful hero, and totally at variance with the 
horsepond-calmness of all his after life, forgets that the character is uni- 
form, though its aberrations are diversely colored. It is the consistent 
inconsistency which Aristotle speaks of and Nature exemplifies. * * 

355. — huge dome Manhattan- rears for thieves.] The not unstately 
pile, more like a castle than a prison, noAv in course of building on the 
site of the old Colled. Here run the common sewers of the city. 



CANTO FOURTH. 251 

A range of filthy dwellinghouses stood, 

Fac'd with dull brick, and bridg'd with steps of 

wood. 
Here, in chalk'd spaces, seven feet by four. 
Crowd various families a comnaon floor ; 
The night's straw sack their musty couch by day, 360 
While on the loathsome plank their broken victuals 

lay. 
Dogs, cats, and children in one litter cry. 
And mud-cak'd pigs encroach upon the sty. 
Without, all wreck and nastiness ; within. 
Starvation, sickness, vermin, stench, and sin. 365 

Such hives as still are found, with ev'n less room. 
In Laurens-street, the southern side of Broom ; 

Ver. 35S - 359. Here, in chalk'd spaces, seven feet by four, — Crowd vari- 
ous families a common floor ;] Many years ago, when the Editor^was a 
resident of New York, a committee of physicians was appointed to in- 
vestigate the causes of an epidemic fever which then raged in Bancker- 
street. In the course of their report, they stated that, in many of the 
houses, there were various families living in one common room, where 
the particular portion of the floor allotted to each tribe of occupants was 
marked off* in chalk, and that one or two of these families even took 
boarders ! That such wretchedness has once existed is a good reason 
for supposing that it exists always, to a certain extent, everywhere, as 
its causes are, like disease, one of the heirlooms of humanity : therefore, 
though that nest is broken up, and Bancker-street no more exists in 
name, there are no doubt many places within the locality of the Five 
Points which would physic pomp* most effectually. * * 

* Take physic Pomp ; 



Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel ; 
That thou may'st shake the superflux to theni;, 
And show the heavens more just. 

K. Lear. A. iii. Sc. 4. Cork. 



252 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Their common sign, the walls one beastly stain 
And an old hat stuck in a shatter'd pane. 

Here, in a garret, near the close of day, 37o 

Stretch'd on his straw, the incarnate Dulness lay. 
Seven years he 'd dabbled at Corseilles's trade, 
Each year advanc'd, yet still had nothing made ; 
And now his term was up, gone was his place. 
And ruin star'd him in the very face. 375 

His beauteous brows contracted in a frown, 
The lovely angles of his mouth turn'd down, 
His eyes suffus'd like green ditch in a calm, 
And cheek indented by his smutty palm. 
He look'd, o'erwhelm'd with economic woes, 380 

More dull than Robert Owen's woodcock-nose. 



Ver. 373. — had nothing made ;] How then had he advanced ? The ad- 
vancement refers to his grade as a printer, or rather (since it will appear 
presently he was in no good odor with his master), to the regular in- 
crease of his wages according to the stipulation in his indentures : his 
making nothing is said according to the usual phrase with tradesmen 
and artisans, when they save nothing clear of their expenses ; the youth's 
entire wages being probably consumed for his lodging, board, clothing, 
and charities. But to this latter item of his expenditure he owes his 
resuscitation and future advancement: so certainly are our good deeds 
rewarded in this life, no matter what the motives which prompted them. 

Anon. 
381. More dull, etc.] A well-known Parisian author, in his translation 
of the Vision, has rendered this line, 

Plus triste que le nez de hicasse d^Owen: 
but, although this is much better than the absurd mistake of another 
French version. 

Plus triste que ne sait la becasse d^Owen, 
yet it is evident, to me, that the expression " dull" has not been properly 
understood. It is true, that the preceding lines of the text would seem 



CANTO FOURTH. 253 

'T was then that, gazing on his minish'd hoard, 
Where the last fragrant onion grac'd the board. 
He thought on her whose damn'd advice he took, 
And, sighing, thus the filial Dulness spoke : — 385 

Was it for this I left my native soil : 
To earn starvation by a sev'n years' toil ? 
To eat, to doze all day, to snore all night. 
Was then my care, my study, my delight ; 
While SciPio's moral tales, and polish'd glee, 390 
Made Sunday pass a happy day for me : 
But now, of seven, six days I toil and fast, 
And hear some old dog preacher bark the last. 
This, at the best. In time, since wages fail, 
Satan may hear me yelp myself, in jail. 395 

Said not that harridan, in giglet's dress, 
That folly would be sure to win success ? 



to assign to it the sense of triste, but the comparison which succeeds it 
intimates, very plainly, that the expression on the hero's face is termed 
dull, simply as being such as becomes a son of Dulness. The Author's 
note (below), upon the nose, confirms our opinion. ** 

381. — Robert Owen's woodcock-nose.] Every sportsman must remem- 
ber with pleasure this conspicuous feature in the visage of the founder 
of New Harmony. It seemed to have been given him on purpose to 
penetrate and draw sustenance from the marshy grounds of metaphys- 
ics, and his eyes appeared to watch the process of speculative suction 
with peculiar satisfaction. Hence, nobody could look upon that very 
ingenious person without having the reasonableness of his doctrines 
stare him in the very face. His nose was like the editorial columns of the 
N. Y. Commercial Advertiser, the extended personification of self-satis- 
fied stolidity. 

395. —fdial Dulness — ] Drtden, in MacFlecknoe. 



254 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

My master every day my task arraigns, 

And swears a pig has twice my share of brains, 

The devils themselves my awkward fingers note, 400 

Laugh at my blunders, and surname me Goat, 

And lately, as I pass'd a neighbouring school, 

The children character'd my back with Fool. 

Am I then rich ? I scarce have bread to eat ; 

And still my breeches show a window'd seat. 405 

False hag ! But no ; she warn'd me of this hour. 

" Invoke Hypocrisy and Cant's twin power." 

I know not if there be such gods on high ; 

But if there be, such votary as I 

Must favor find. I '11 try. I should be willing 4io 

To call the Devil just now for one poor shilling. 

O thou ! whatever title suits thee best. 

Goddess or god ! who wean'dst me at the breast, 

Taught'st me with screams new accidents to feign, 

That sugar might relieve the fancy'd pain, 4i5 

And shap'dst this mouth (through life thy dearest 

charge). 
Where God has written Hypocrite in large ; 

Ver. 398. My master every day, — etc.] He was so recently dismissed 
from his situation that he still speaks in the present time ; the habit of 
his apprenticeship being not yet thrown off, and therefore conveying to 
his mind the customary images. ** 

404, 406. Am 1 then rich 9 etc.] Alluding to the implied promises of Impu- 
dence, in the scene on the bank of the Hudson. See v. 270, 271. * * 

413. — wean'dst me at the breast.] It is a species of hypocrisy, the 
masking of the mother's nipple with soot to disgust the suckling. • * 



CANTO FOURTH. 255 

And thou ! her brother, or twin-sister fair, 

Who prick'st my tongue, and tun'st my weekly 

pray'r ! 
All hail. Hypocrisy and Cant ! dread twain ! 42o 
Guide of these lips, while Dulness sways the brain: 
If, for your sake, in fanes I 've courted sleep, 
AVhile zealots deem'd I cloak'd my brow to weep ; 
If seem'd my ear to drink the good man's drone. 
While, to my heart, lov'd Malice preach'd alone ; 425 
If, where the hallow'd bread I knelt to eat, 
I 've spit my venom on my neighbour's seat. 
Then hatch'd, as home my way demure I trod. 
The plots concerted in the house of God ; 
O, if to give your gracious power delight, 430 

My earnings vanish'd in my soul's despite, 
While Charity reck'd little that I ly'd. 
But took the unwilling tribute paid to Pride ; 
In fine, if all my actions still have been 
Sway'd by your laws, which govern'd though un- 
seen, 43^ 



Ver. 42S, 429. Then hatched, as home my way demure I trod,— The plots con- 
certed in the house of God ;] By the comprehension of this distich in the 
same clause with the preceding-, we are taught, that Rubeta does not 
mean to say that he actually went to church to talk scandal (though 
such a thing is not improbable), but that he indulged himself by effusing 
his spleen in petto, and on his way home matured the plots he had there 
laid. Such, we may imagine, was at a later day the divine origin of the 

aspersion of the characters of Mr. S , Mr. B , and (an in_ 

stance which will be found presently cited) Lady . Anon. 



256 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Vouchsafe the aid was promis'd by that ronion ! 
I cannot sup nine days on one small onion. 

Scarce had he finish'd, when, behold ! the door, 
On its sole hinge shrill-screaking, shaves the floor ; 
And 'twixt the narrow posts two forms appear ; 440 
Both manlike, from the straiten'd dress they wear ; 
But all the woman mantled in their air. 



Ver. 440, &c. — Hioixt the narrow posts two forms appear ; etc. etc.] All 
that follows, with regard to the "two forms," Eustathius sets down as 
pure allegory. We cannot say of the bishop of Thessalonica what he 
says of Ulysses, that he tells a manifest falsehood, but he is certainly 
very much mistaken. It was the object of Dulness to prevent her son 
from knowing his celestial origin ; otherwise he would certainly not play 
the part designed for him: and we find that, to this day, he is ignorant 
that he is any thing more than an extraordinary mortal, whatever sus- 
picions, as has been intimated, he may have to the contrary. Now, his 
mother's gossips had an equal interest in maintaining the secret ; and 
consequently they assume a disguise, as in the text: for, as their nature 
is essence, they could not have been manifest to him otherwise than by a 
voice from the wall, or by the intuition of animal magnetism. Why they 
did not use this latter method is evident; Rubeta's time was not yet 
come : why they had not recourse to the former may be gathered from 
our argument ; it had disclosed the secret. * * 

My son, who, the reader will remember, is a student of arts, and therefore conver- 
sant with this same matter, assures us that the editor is certainly playing the fool with 
sober criticism, or otherwise he would never jumble a bishop of the twelfth century with 
a tract-distributor of the nineteenth 5 and that, however such an anachronism might 
have been winked at in the Poet, (who, however, does not anywhere indulge in it,) it 
cannot be pardoned in a grave commentator, who has all his wits about him, and has 
no business to be playing the Childe. He therefore argues that the poem is all bur- 
lesque ! ! Good Heaven ! can it be possible ? We cannot, we will not, believe him ! 
Whatever the faults of the Editor, no buffoonery on his part can hang the bells on the 
crowned head of that sagest of sublime personages, the royal and pontifical Rubeta. 

Cork. 

We correct the revise by assuring the proof-reader that his son, though 
a very good boy, does not understand what he is talking about: neverthe- 
less, we permit his observations to remain, that we may through them, 
once for all, set right those of our readers who may be disposed to think 
that either the Author or ourself are burlesquing the epopee. The se- 



CANTO FOURTH. 267 

Portly and pursj one, with eyes demure, 
Cheeks vermil-red, and as a vestal's pure ; 
The other gaunt, and freckled like a toad, 445 

With straight sleek hair, and orbs that only show'd 
Their jaundic'd whites six hours out of seven. 
The pupils roll'd devoutly towards Heaven. 
This last the mouth-piece. Sweet his accents fall, 
Mix'd tone between a snivel and a drawl : 450 

While sigh'd his solemn mate, as sore distress'd, 
His heavy eyelids ever low depress'd. 
And clasp'd a heap of pamphlets to his breast ; 
Whereon the prentice-newsman's glance might see 
This legend printed : — Eggs of Charity, 455 

They enter'd arm in arm, and, strange to tell. 
Though this was plump, that merely bone and fell, 
You scarcely might distinguish one from th' other ! 
For when the silent spoke, he drawl'd just like his 
brother. 

riousness of the poem is not less indisputable than the virtues of its 
hero. * * 

455. — ^^ Eggs of Charity.''^] The very book whose title Rubeta 
carried in his pocket, and thence copied in " a note for the blind lady to 
read, sealed with seven seals "! " The note," (he says,) " written and 
printed, as we left it, was in these words : — ' The following is the title, 
etc. : -- " Eggs of Chanty, laycd by the Chickens of the Covenant, and 
hailed hy the Wafers of Divine Love. Take ye and eat." ' " (Comm. 
Adv. of Sept. 4, 1837; and the same, with the alteration of the editorial 
we for the authorial I, in .yJn. Magn. p. 53.) 

The hero would therefore appear to have made a memorandum of this 
title, after the visit, and treasured it. Could the Monkbarns of bibliog- 
raphy have carried the Eggs in his pocket ever since ? ^ * 
33 



258 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Began the stranger of the freckled face : — 460 
Art thou the apprentice ? he that 's in disgrace ? 
(The youth assented with a flood of tears.) 
We come for thy salvation. Loose thy fears. 
The vi^holesome savor of thy virtues rare 
Reach'd us in sister Weasel's house of pray'r : 465 
How to poor slaves thy night-shirt thou didst part ; 
With other gracious quick'nings of the heart. 
Therefore, a shining light thou shalt be made, 
A trap to Satan, even by thy trade. 
But gird thy loins ; thy tale to us disclose : 47o 

No common history that visage shows. 

The goddess ceas'd ; ('t was Cant herself, dis- 
guis'd ; 
Her sister by ;) and thus the youth, advis'd, 

Ver. 470. But gird thy loins ; ] We are not to imagine, from this expres- 
sion, that the youth's breeches were down, as Scioppius would teach us; 
who indiscreetly reads, in the second hemistich, Ihy tale thou ivilt expose^ 
— and thereby, from the ambiguity of his own construction (which may 
either imply command, or be considered as simply predicting an event,) 
infers a double meaning. It is the use, or rather the abuse, of scriptural 
language, in which Cant especially delights ; and the sense is, simply, 
Come, my good fellow, let us have ihy story ; for appearances are deceitful 
indeed, if that scaramouch's visage of thine do not promise us some rare 
buffoonery. * * 

472, 473. — [H was Cant herself, disguised ; — Her sister hy ;)] Thus 
explained, in the language of Milton, and after the practice of Ho- 
mer : 

For spirits, when they please, 



• in what shape they choose 

* # * 



CANTO FOURTH 



259 



His tale commenc'd, while groan'd the bigger guest, 
And clasp'd his Eggs still closer to his breast: — 475 

From Pisa, on the Danube's banks, I came ; 
My sire, a mighty satrap known to fame, 
De Petra call'd, — of old descent; whose shield 
Bears three brown pebbles on a silver field. 

Can execute their airy purposes, 
And works of love or enmity fulfil. 

Par. L. i. 423, 424, 428, and 430, 431. 
476. Pisa, on the Danuhe^s banks,] It is singular, that every sensible 
critic should consider this error on the part of Rubeta as the effect ot 
icrnorance, and not the voluntary part of the subtilized dissimulation, so 
worthy of a great and wise man, which the hero, an Ulysses at little 
more than the age of Telemachus, displays at this crisis of his mortal 

fate 
The word satrap, in the next line, comes under the same remark. * * 
479 — broivn — ] There is no such tincture in heraldry. Read 
therefore red; the arms being probably blazoned thus :- .^rgenf, three 
paving-stones gules. Bentlet. 

A bad correction. Rubeta was but then an apprentice; therefore 
had not attained that universal knowledge which puts him since beyond 
the chance of error. How happily, in later days, his knowledge of blazon 
adds ornament and vigor to his style, has been frequently observed by 
his admirers. An instance, fresh in the recollection of the readers of 
his journal, is that where, noticing the departure of the great steam- 
vessel with the ridiculous name, he launches forth, in the spirit of Wal- 
TER Scott, into the Mlow'mg felicity of description : — 

" From the topmast " [she has four] - of the ship floated a banner, quartered with 
the flags of England and the United States ~ the stars of our country bemg blended 
with the cross of St. George, on the dexter point, and the stripes occupying the ground 
of the lower sinister qtiarter." 

Certainly (not to speak of the excellent English) the exactness of heraldic 
cant with which he so happily emblazons the dexter and sinister quar- 
ters, and the variety which his synonyme of point and quarter gives to this 
delicious passage, most strikingly evince the truth of what rhetoricians 
have observed, that no branch of knowledge can be superfluous to a 
poet, or, as we might more accurately express it, that the author of the 
Sepulchre of David should find himself at home on every topic. * * 
478, 479. — whose shield — Bears three hroivn pebbles on a silver field.] 



260 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Lib'ral and wise, and such by wide report, 480 

The sons of Science ever throng'd his court. 

Among the rest, there came a needy Gaul ; 

His art unknown ; his work, a magic ball. 

Enormous globe ! within whose silken round 

The viewless winds, by wizard charms, were bound. 485 

To this a fragile osier car was ty'd, 

Prepar'd for voyage in the coastless void. 

I, who was ever of a dauntless mind. 

Straight to the bark my princely form consign'd. 

In vain my sire, in vain his court oppose. 490 

Up to the clouds the wind-borne shallop rose. 

How beautifully is truth mixed up with fiction in this Odyssean inven- 
tion ! for can it be doubted that this is the very shield, the mysterious 
allusion to which forms not one of the least wonderful of the wonders of 
the wondrous Letter on Animal Magnetism ? Some, however, as we 
have stated in our observations on the preceding Canto, will have it 
that this pretended shield has, like the principality of the Satrap, no 
existence whatever, save in the heraldry of the hero's imagination; 
while others maintain, with us, that it is a sprig of genuine truth en- 
grafted on the stock of the fable, and found their argument upon the 
fact that in the three pebbles we have, after a well-known fashion 
of heralds, a quibbling allusion to the name of Petra. Appropriately of 
this name, we may just mention that a few of the ardent admirers of the 
great man, whose youth is set before the reader in such fascinating col- 
ors (where the wisdom of the serpent is seen to blend with the innocence 
and tenderness of the dove), that these amiable enthusiasts regard De 
Pttra as the real designation of the herdsman, and make him a de- 
scendant of one Gabriel de Petra, a Latin translator of Longinus; 
whence they derive tliat just perception, that keen relish, of the sub- 
lime which is so distinguished an attribute of the author of the Tales 
and Sketches. Pleasing conjecture! might it be considered true: but 
the Muse, from whose eyes nothing is hidden, shows the fallacy of such 
a notion, and deprives the hero of the hereditary laurel to wreathe his 
brows with amaranth. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 261 

Three days, three nights, again another day, 
Through heaven's wide sea we took our trackless 

way. 
Such as the moon through clouds is seen to take. 
The billowy vapors surging on her wake. 495 

'T was the fourth night : my head lay on my breast, 
And famish'd youth sought sustenance in rest : 
When, suddenly, I heard a rushing sound. 
As when a hurricane sweeps the ground ; 
Upturns the car ; down, down, I feel me fall, 500 
Like seamew stricken by the fowler's ball ; 
And then, the plash of waters ; and I woke. 
Wide o'er my head your bay's green surges broke, 
And, by the dawn's gray light, I saw afloat 
The wizard foul, his car become his boat, 505 

While round his limbs the fluttering silk was wound. 
Monstrous no more, as when it spurn'd the ground. 
I saw : next moment, lo ! the accursed Gaul 
A dogfish swallowed up, car, silk, and all ! 
Why then I perish'd not, I fear to think ; sio 

Things doom'd to hang, men say, can never sink. 
Sir Shark no more an appetite might feel. 
And sav'd me doubtless for his noon-day meal. 
Ere noon, a fisher pick'd me up. The rest. 
Want and misfortune will explain it best. 515 

Happy alone in that I yet survive. 
Still happier, saw my foe devour'd alive, 



262 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

But happiest now, if, by jour timely aid, 

To this poor onion I may add some bread. 

Come to my heart! — Hypocrisy reply'd, — 520 

Dear as myself, so sagely hast thou ly'd. 

But say, thy name ? how by thy fellows known ? 
As Stupid Will, or William the Buffoon, 
Ah! — cry'd the goddess of the downcast eyes, — 

There blush'd the truth ! For once, thou art not 

wise. 525 

Yet William simply thou shalt be no more, 
But, with the name thy satrap-father bore, 
Soon shalt thou reign the pacha of a journal, 
Esquir'd in print, while wits nickname thee Colonel, 

Ver. 620. — IlrrocRTsr reply^d, — ] An eminent instance of the force 
of great virtue. Even Hypocrisy, who has hitherto let Cant do all 
the speaking, is roused from her divine abstraction by the congenial 
wisdom of her godchild. Similar is a scene in the thirteenth Book of 
the Odyssey, between Minerva and the double-dealing Ithacus. We 
have intimated already, that, as in the qualities of his heart Rubeta is 
jEneas spiritualized and perfected, so in wisdom and versatility he re- 
sembles, resembles to surpass, the favored of Athena. Indeed, the 
Author has so told us himself: — 

th' unborrow'd glory 

Of him, the Ulysses of this brave old story. 

Canto i. 46. ** 
525. There hlvsVd the truth!] Why hlusK'd'^ Dacier says, because it 
was ashamed of being found in his company. * * 

527. — the, name thy satrap-father bore,] That is, Petra added to 
William. Taubman. 

528. — pacha — ] Hetne says, of three tails," or with the letters 
E. S, Q, annexed to his designation. An interpretation perhaps sanc- 
tioned by the first hemistich of the succeeding line. * * 

529. — wits nickname thee ^^ Colonel." ] Heyne reads cits; for, as 
he justly observes, why should the designation be ascribed to the jocu- 



CANTO FOURTH. 26^ 

Nay, more ; if studious our lov'd will to please, 530 

A nobler title shalt thou bear than these : 

Haply some muse, enamor'd of thy fame. 

Shall consecrate to Time thy future name. 

And men, delighted, see their Stupid Will, 

Limn'd on the mists that shroud Apollo's hill, 535 



larity of wit, when it is the familiar style and title of Rubeta? The 
same able critic conjectures that nickna.me should be 5M/-name, for the 
same reason. The melody of the verse would certainly be improved by 
the two emendations. * * 

529. " Colonel." ] At this word we find a note which is evidently an 
interpolation. Some vulgar fellow (for who else would so misinterpret 
a character that is the very aloe of epic excellence ?) rails thus, in the 
style of Doll Tearsheet : — " Colonel! Thou abominable newsmonger! 
art thou not ashamed to be called Colonel'? A Colonel! These fellows 
will make the word Colonel as odious as the word editor; which was an 
excellent good word before it was ill-sorted. Therefore colonels had 
need look to it." K. Hen. iv. A. ii. Sc. 4. * * 

535. Limn'd on the mists that shroud Jpollo^s hill,] By this, the 
Author means to intimate that he himself never saw the hill of the 
Muses, but only draws his pictures from the clouds, which settle on 
Parnassus, and are taken for the mount itself, by short-sighted people, 
and that they are even like them fleeting, — quales ego, aid Cluvunvs.* 
But if so, what does he mean by consecrating them to Time'? Lipsius 
would read in verse ; not observing that, as the Poet has said Muse in 
the preceding line, this reading Avould give place to a slovenly tau- 
tology. However, the text may need no emendation ; for, as the words 
are put in the mouth of Hypocrisy, it may be that this goddess (not- 
withstanding she sometimes speaks the truth) is really exercising her 
function on the ex-apprentice, and, when she promises him notoriety, is 
cheating him with a bubble. 



The above, by some anonymous hand, is false criticism. Hypocrisy 
indeed does never speak the original sentiments of her own heart, 
(which would certainly be to utter falsehood,) but her words are, almost 
always, truth counterfeited from the lips of others ; for by this forgery 

* Juvenal of himself: Sat. i. 80. * * 



264 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

In grov'lling ways and venom'd froth surpass 
The hedge-toad, and in ignorance the ass. 
Meantime, there 's earnest. Take thou. Buy and 

eat. 
Who serves us well shall never want for meat. 

As some tall lily, crush'd by showers of rain, 540 
While beats the storm lies levelFd with the plain ; 
On the soak'd soil its leafy honors lie. 
While the bare root confronts the inclement sky; 
When kindly hands the prostrate plant have found, 
Reset its stem, and bid it grace the ground, 545 

Soon to the sun it spreads a gorgeous flower. 
And looks, reviv'd, more lovely for the shower : 
So from his woful dump the hero rose : 
O'er his soil'd cheek the joy of dulness glows : 

alone is she plausible, and able to play her part with effect. In inti- 
mating the probability that some poet might consecrate to Time the 
name of Rubeta, the goddess by no means says that Time will accept 
the offering. * * 

636, 537. In — venom' df rot k surpass — The hedge-toad, — ] Alexan- 
der AB Alex, considers the illustration to be adopted with great pro- 
priety, because as the saliva of the toad is really harmless, though re- 
puted poisonous by the vulgar, so the sweltered malice of Rubeta 
blackens no man's character, though he spits it with a spite that, to or- 
dinary eyes, looks mortal ! SchoL 

537. —hedge-toad, — ] We have chosen this occasion for a conjec- 
tural explanation of the name RUBETA. " Sunt, quae " — says Flint, 
speaking of toads — " Sunt, quffi in vepribus iantum vivunt, ob id rube- 
TARUJM nomine, ut diximus, quas Grseci phrynos vocant, grandillimsB 
cunctarum, geminis veluti cornibus, joZencE venejiciorum" {Hst. JVat. 
xxxii. 18.) Tills of itself would seem to answer the description of ani- 
mal ; but again we have, « ILLATIS IN POPULUM, SILENTIUM 
FIERI ! " which sets the matter beyond dispute. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 265 

And oh, — he cry'd, — ye heaven-inspir'd two ! 550 
For gifts so rare what shall your servant do ? 

Do ? (Cant reply'd :) Do nothing ; only lie. 
With this one merit nothing else can vie. 
Thou own'st the virtue : to sustain it try. 
Detraction ; slander ; skill to hide the right, 555 

Or smother it whenever brought to light ; 
The fear of God in mouth-religion shown ; 
The zeal for all men's morals but one's own ; 
All are but forms of that one gift divine. 
And all these forms, my son, are thine, are thine ! 560 
This, to maintain our rights and triple rule ; 
But, for thine own amusement, play the fool : 
In books, gazette, or pamphlets ; where you will ; 
Place cannot lack to such consummate skill. 
When thou art great, as great thou soon shalt be, 565 
Since Dulness' self resigns the throne to thee. 
The lecture-room thy foolery shall share. 
And wise committees lead thee to the chair. 
As showmen bid their long-tail'd monkeys pray. 
To gather crowds, and make the laughers pay. 570 



Ver. 550. — he cry^d, — ye heaven-inspired two !] This shows Rubeta to 
be still ignorant of the character of his visitors. He believes them to 
be holy persons, sent expressly by Providence to reward a man of his 
consummate piety. * * 

557. — mouth-religion — ] The hero's " worst fault," like Jack 
Rugby's, " is, that he is given to prayer. But nobody but has his 
fault." {M. Wives of Windsor, A. i. Sc. 4.) * * 
34 



266 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Thus in all places scatter all thy trash, 

Gemm'd thick with lies. Nor fear thou to be rash. 



Vei;. 667 - 570. The lecture-room thy foolery shall share, — And wise com- 
mitteeSj &c. ] 

Redit ad pulpita notum 

Exodium * — 

We see by the papers, that the immortal panegyrist of Eve's green 
petticoat is again to favor the public with one of those delightful effu- 
sions of eloquence, which thrilled the hearts of some hundred misses at 
Clinton-Hall the past winter ; the generous creature having volunteered 
his services to extricate the N. Y. Historical Society from debt. The 
committee (on which, by the by, his portly rival Petronius figures: 
happy society ! in such an orator, led to the rostrum by such a com- 
mittee !) the committee have placed him sixth upon the list of lectu- 
rers. What his subject will be we do not know ; but, to judge from 
the fact of his now growing pale over the biography of a Mohawk 
savage, and from his notorious modesty, it will doubtless be a recom- 
mendatory sample of that elaborate compilation. As we are, happily, 
domiciled for the winter in New York, we shall go to hear him, and 
take with us our three little girls, and two small boys, baby and all, 
personm pallentis hiatum in gremio mairis formidantem infantulum.j 



* Jov. iii. 174. 

t Friday evening, Feb. 23, 1838, 9^ o'clock. I have just returned from the Stuy- 
vesant Institute, where the divine lecturer on Adaji's emblematic language kept 
wisdom and loveliness chained down upon the benches, nearly two entire hours, to 
listen to the eulogy of Brant : for it was, indeed, as we conjectured, of a portion of 
his gatherings respecting Brant that this illustrious being condescended to deliver 
himself. Unprepared as they were for the discourse, (for, until the gazette came in 
which advertised it, we were not aware of the substitution of the ready Colonel for one 
of his brother-lecturers earlier on the list,) unprepared as they were, my wife, and 
even the children, cloaked and shawled themselves with great animation ; Nurse tied 
up our precious baby's throat to secure it from the sharpness of the freezing weather} 
the carriage drew up to the door ; and in ten minutes we were in the Lecture-room of 
the Institute. 

The classic exercise commenced. The Athenian, wriggling gracefully, informed 
the audience, that he had been pitched upon, quite unexpectedly to himself, " as a for- 
lorn sort o' hope," whereupon he wittily remarked, with that inimitable expression of 
his unrivalled mouth, that he was afraid they would find liim very forlorn. I thought 
the baby would have gone into convulsions ! — He then added, that he had himself a 
cold, muttered something which, we regret to say, was lost to us in the immensity of 
his shirt-collar, finished the observation on catarrhal impediments by remarking that he 
was not always thought to avak like a raven, coughed five times, spoke of militia-offi- 



CANTO FOURTH. 



267 



If scented, call them errors. This shall pass : 
Nobody minds the stumbling of an ass. 

cers and epaulettes, with a beautifully jocose allusion to his own """^ '■°~^ 
at las. condescended to fall into ther^Ust of,M„gs, assurmg.he l--*- *f ' *;"f fj^ 
IKD,«S did butcherwomen, they never violated them, as, he sa,d,was always 

'^Se"th^e'tM::™wThe'1oet C.MPBK.. was guilty of a great want of ntagnan- 
intUy in noraltering his elegant poen,, after he had been informed by the young r 
Br«t of the error of his statement with regard to the One.da ch.ef.am, sa,d he should 
fothave put the correction into a note, but have altered the text &c.; a suggest.on 
which should Mr. C»,PB.r..by any odd chance liglt. upon these pages he w 

Msd"scourse when, perceiving my h.tle boys to stare, he observed, paren.het.ca ly, 

his boyhood (when Sc.P.o taught him) o/ .mytes Wtom.no, a^rf he h^" ^"X 
AFTER STUCK TO IT : which, as my youngest boy remarked, ,s being very sp rued 

Moreover on the sau.e occasion, we learned that audacious m«t be arucula.ed 
ow-dash-us ; occupation, ok-koo-pa-tion ; regular, reg-gil-er ; &c. &c. &.C. 

B„, my w fe - She shall never see Rubet. again ! never 1 I thought she would have 
^one cTa.y from the mere fascination of his mou.h! Were .he dear suscep.,ble crea- 
Te in .he way she contrives .o be, .o my delight and affliction, every two years 1 
Ihould cerlinly have removed her. And my little Amelia asked me.M that funny 
^•rflT To.he readers of .he Vision, who are aware of .he beau.y of this uncon- 
Ttelf tare i he ^ero^s celestial physi'ognomy, this enthusiasm of the females of 
mv femi ly will not appear surprising. Even I, I myself, grey as I am m d.vers pat- 
Tl^sT d a7most laugl'ed aloud in pure delight of con.empla.ion ; for the recollect^n 
eroded me of what loo wished his fingers were for Cass.o s sake and I could no. 
hrwondering, if Cass.o's mouth were like Robeta's, that ,t should suggest to the 
brain of the malicious and envious Ancient so savory a fancy. 

In conclusion, we heard a great deal .ha. we did no. unders.and b„. we were en- 
tertained with sundry sallies of .he face.ious his.orian's wi., learned .ha. officers on 
patde mns. be said .o ga,niol about, when .hey ride .heir horses bnskly "P and ^own 
and had .he inexpressibl felicity of seeing represen.ed .he very ,dea we had forrned 
oOhe Lecurer's manner when .oying wi.h LoHA.« i for, a. .he close of hs dis- 
course having occasion .o speak of a young savage burs.ing mlo a room with a 
baby -' in his arms, he paused for a moment ; his eyes scintillated m the.r own pecuhar 
manner; "skipping," said he,"like_»e a young fau,n" ; and, as he spoke,.he 
mighty Colonel tossed his arms l,ke a cradle, lifted his infenor members one after 
rnfther and showed us a living picture of the nursery. He then closed h,s sheet , and 
remarktog, as he raised the foo. of the pamphlet so as to le. ,he light glance on ,t, and 
Tw us if was printed, that it was part of a work which would very soon be pubhshed, 

(») A favorite subject of his, as will be seen at v. 707, and as is w.ll known .o the read- 
ers ofthe N. Y. Couim. Adv. 



268 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Laugh with the foe: stand firm. If vain their fire, 575 
To save themselves their forces must retire. 
Rare strategy, for which Fate made thee fit, 
Who gave thy modesty to match thy wit ! 

Thus she. But, joy dissembling, while he sigh'd, 
Dulness' dull offspring thus, demure, reply'd : — 580 
Ah ! might this be ! But this (thou know'st it well) 
Were cheap'ning pleasure at the mart of Hell. 



Ver. 575. — stand Jlrm. If vain their Jire^ — To save themselves^ their 
forces must retire."] Cant, whose metaphors are usually taken from the 
sacred writings, yet does not hesitate to borrow them from every use 
and circumstance of life ; as is known to those who are most familiar 
with the ways of this pleasant goddess. Here, for instance, where she 
has dropped the language of her office, and comes to plain dealing with 
the hero, the allusion is almost a translation from the tactics of Puy- 

SEGUR : — 

" Mais, dira-t-on, comment ces figures de bataillon peuvent-elles marcher et tenter 
de se retirer, surtout ayant les rangs et les files si serres ? Je s^ai bien que quand 
I'ennemi, apr^s s'etresoumisa leur feu, marche pour les attaquer, pour lors ces batail- 
lons ne doivent pas marcher, mais attendre le choc de pied ferme. L' ennemi attaque 
de force, ou ne le fait pas ; s'il n'attaque pas, ou qu'aprh avoir attaqud il n'ait pas 
rdussiy il faut quHl s' eloigne pour nepas etre soumis aufeu, et ne pas perdre inutile- 
ment du monde." Art de la Guerre : Chap. xiii. Art. viii. (4to. T. i. p. 289.) 

678. — thy modesty to match thy ivit.'] We have shown, (and proofs 
must multiply as we go on,) that both are unrivalled. But for the for- 
mer quality, ah ! nobody ever came near it but So si a.* 

he curtsied, and, with a soft and winning smile, gave the audience permission to go 
home and get warmed. 

As we left the hall door, a pretty girl remarked, that she thought the lecture "for- 
lorn, and should not go again." — " But the mouth, the mouth ! " said my wife. " But 
the mouth 1" said Amelia. " My dears," said I, " both, — you will leave the mouth 
till a reggeler opportoonity : that 'ere 's the car-ri-age, and it 's time to gambol home." 
My wife pressed my arm in rapture at my improved elocution, called me her dear 
Colonel, and took her seat. I felt like Othello ; and all that night I lay with my 
back to her. Certainly, never shall she see that basilisk again ! * * 

* In the Amphitryon, where that worthy fellow says of himself, {A. i. Sc. i.) 
Qui me alter est audacior homo ? aut qui me confidentior ? 



CANTO FOURTH. 269 

Smil'd the twin-goddesses a solemn smile, 
To find their charge transcend them both in guile ; 
And Cant resum'd : — Know'st not it hath been 
said 585 

Lies are but breath, and cannot weigh with bread ? 
'T is the mouth's care the stomach to supply. 
Curse then your stomach, if its pantler lie ; 
And nobly dare, since to the gap thou 'rt driven ; 
Nor hope, a newsman thou, to go to Heaven. 590 
Or fear'st thou me ? O son, too wise by far, 
Behold ! and know us both for what we are ! 

Straight, to the prentice-hero's swelling eyes, 
Up from the floor a fog appear'd to rise, 

Ver. 585. — KnovPst not it hath been said — Lies are hut breath, and can- 
not weigh with bread?] We suppose that Cant, (who, whether in her 
real essence, or in her assumed character, would be conversant with the 
history of all heresies,) alludes to the doctrines of Priscillian ; this 
amiable bishop having taught, that false oaths, and of course ordinary- 
lies, are perfectly justifiable when recommended by utility and conven- 
ience ; a tenet which the snivelling goddess knew must be peculiarly 
acceptable to the future newsman. And, accordingly, it has ever since 
proved the rule of his action, as it is the basis of the wisdom of half his 
tribe. 

But RuBETA was already in possession of this principle, as he himself 
has boasted, and Cant herself acknowledges. Why then was it neces- 
sary to teach it ? Ans. To confirm him in his lofty course of conduct: 
for, during his mortal term of life, the immortal changeling would neces- 
sarily be subject to the inconstancy of humanity, which needs every 
caution, and encouragement, to maintain it in rectitude. * * 

593, &c. Straight, etc. ] Those, who maintain that the deification 
of Rubeta's visitors is but poetical embellishment, bring forward this 
passage in proof of their argument, and pretend to tell us, that the fog 
and sunbeam are no more than the gloom of the chamber as the twi- 
light thickens into darkness, and the transformation of the righteous 



270 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Which wrapp'd the strangers in its dusky shade, 595 

While through the veil a parting sunbeam plaj'd, 

And lo ! the brother of the Eggs w^as seen, 

In sober bonnet and vs^ith simpering mien, 

A damsel cautelous of plump eighteen ; 

Such as, on Sunday, mincing from her pew, 600 

Looks o'er the shoulder, when base men pursue. 

He of the freckled cheek appear'd no more ; 

No more in bulk ; but, heavenly as before. 

His upturn'd eyes were seen, and mouth's dry twist. 

Floating and flickering on the cloud of mist ; 605 

Yet ever nigh the bonnet kept their place. 

Like a booth-brother breathing sounds of grace. 

All this above ; but, 'neath the damsel's clothes, 

Peep'd out an alligator's scaly toes. 

couple a mere optical delusion, consequent upon the imperfect vision of 
the hero, and his now thorough perception of their character. * * 

607. Like a booth-brother breathing sounds of grace. ] Alludes to 
the confidential exhortations, in those abominable howling-matches in 
the wilderness which go by the name of camp-meetings ; and which, be 
it remarked, are as gross an insult to the majesty of religion, as the 
mummery of the ancient priests of Isis, and only less licentious than 
that horrible superstition because less general. * * 

609. — alligator — ] This well known species of lizard, whose drow- 
sy nature makes it love a state of quiescence, is said to make up for its 
want of bodily flexibility by assuming the motionless appearance of a 
log on the water, which induces the duller animals to come within its 
reach : whence, and from the popular and poetical notion of its coun- 
terfeiting distress, it has been at all times an emblem of hypocrisy,* 

* The difference between the alligator of Florida and the crocodile of Egypt is 
not well established, or is so trifling as to be confined to a very few, and exceeding!}' 
slight, physical distinctions 5 though Cuvier has enumerated not less than twelve 
species as distinct families of this monster. 



CANTO FOURTH. 271 

Down in the dust, before the awful shade, 6io 

The hero knelt uumask'd, and thus ecstatic, pray'd: — 

Take me, good angels ! soul and body take, 
Mould by your will, and what you 'd have them 
make ! 



Ver.612, &c. Take me, good angels! etc. etc.] Imitated from the Clouds. 
Certainly there is a remarkable family likeness, between the qualities 
for which Strepsiades conditions and those of which Rubeta is in 
happy possession, as will be seen particularly in the parts of the origi- 
nal we have underscored. 

Nuv ouv ^^rKT^cdv, n (hovXovrui 
Tout) to y' ifJt,ov ffu/n' avTo7(rtv 
'n.api;^u rvtriiv, 9rsiv^v, "hi-^nv, 
Ab^fAiTv, piyouv, afficov ^ai^uv ' 

To7s av6^eo<!rois r' thai Vo^u 

pafhs) tvyXcoTTos, t oX f^n ^os, i rt] $, 

B^ i Xu^o s, "^ iu^MV ^uyx oXkr]Tri S, 

Kyp?/jf , KpoTuXoVf xhec'So;, r^Vf^fif 
Mtt,ff6\ns, i't'^euv, yXom, 0iXcc(&>vXj 

2rQ0(pis, agyuXioi, (jt,arruokoixo?' 

439-451. 

As Aristophanes uses many words that are of rare occurrence, and 
not unfrequently in senses that are peculiar or unusual, the general 
reader will perhaps not be displeased, that I attempt to render in Eng- 
lish the verses I have cited, (if he will pardon an extemporaneous and 
doggerel, but almost literal, version of that melodious wit.) |1 



* In one sense, his contemporary, the elegant Petronius, shares with him in this 
gift. * * 

t This his goddesses would not allow to our Strepsiades, but have made the quali- 
fication over to Petronius. 

X Shared with Petronius. 

§ Characteristic of the whole tribe. 

II I have no copy of Mr. Mitchell's Aristophanes, or I should transcribe the ver- 
sion therefrom. It is several years since I met, in some review, or magazine, with 



272 THE VISION OF RUBETA, 

Lo ! for all jobs your trusty servant fit ; 

To your great cause, obedient, I submit 6i5 

Stbepsiades is addressing the Clouds, the demons which the satirical 
dramatist feigns to he the deities of Socbates. 

Now let them use me as they please. 

This, my body, I give to these, 

To beat, to expose to hunger and thirst. 

To parch with heat,* to stiffen Avith cold. 
To strip of the hide, (if it come to the worst,) 

So that my creditors loose their hold, 

To men I may seem a rascal bold. 
With the gift of the gab, pert and audacious, 
Flagitious, loquacious. 
And above all, mendacious ; 
Vers'd in the strife and the wiles of the court, 

Of law-stuff to prattle, 

A turbulent rattle, 
A sly-creeping fox ; an old stager in short : 
A slippery knave, and as pliant as leather, 
A thorough dissembler and braggart together, 

certain extracts from that work, which delighted me exceedingly. One passage I re- 
member : it is the translation of these lines : 
DiSClP. I. "AvOpwne, ri noieig; 

Streps. "O ti itoiS 5 ri 5* aXXo y' ?) 
AiaXeTTTTO^oyovnai rats 6oko2s rrjs oIkius 5 
which Mr. Mitchell thus happily renders, (I hope I shall not be found to misquote 
him ? ) in the very spirit of his author 5 that is, as Aristophanes would have written 
had his language been English : 

1st Discip. Old fellow there, what are you after ? 
Streps. I 've a knotty point with your schoolroom joint, 
And some logic to chop with your rafter. 
If all his translation be like this specimen (1), I am forestalled in a labor of love which 
I had set by for some future day. 

* I do not know why Brunck, and others, have preferred to translate av^etv by 
squalore conjicere, when the ordinary sense affords so agreeable an antithesis. 

(1) This, I think,'is a mistake. Mr. Mitchell, I believe, never translated the Clouds, 
but published, in his volumes, the version of Cumberland. An accomplished friend ad- 
vises me, that it is, without doubt, a version of the reviewer of Mr. Mitchell's perform- 
ance, which the Author, by a lapse of the memory, has ascribed to the latter gentleman. 
The work of translation, therefore, is still open in English ; for Cumbebland's Clouds, 
however elegant, is not the Clouds of Aristophanes. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 273 

These brains (if any be,) these hands, this face, 
Reckless of scorn, and callous to disgrace. 
All that I ask, — Feed, feed my craving purse ! 
And, worthless as I am, still make me worse ! 
Known through the isle for impudence, audacity, 620 
Emptiness, malice, arrogance, loquacity, 
Dissembling, cunning, boastfulness, mendacity ; 
My mind and morals most consummate matches, 
Py'd as my journal,, patches set on patches ; 



A cloak of odd patches, obscenely impure, 
A Jack at all tricks, and most hard to endure, 
And ready at all times to cozen the poor. * 

* * 

624. Py^d as my journal, -^] The journal over which his god-parenfs 
had promised to set him (v. 528). He seems already to conceive a very 
exact idea of its nature. Whence many have supposed that his time had 

* Though I cite from the favorite edition of Brunck, I have chosen, for con- 
venience, the common reading ixaTLo\oi')((ii, notwithstanding that excellent editor pto- 
nounced it nihili esse. 

MaTioXoi^bi, qui ex falsa mensitra lucrum capiat: a nomine ftaTiov, significante genus 
quoddam mensurm. [Eust. — Aristoph. in Nub.] An explanation which, if it can be 
defended (1), cannot be considered as inapplicable. However, for the emendation pre- 
ferred by Brunck, fiaTTurj is mattya, ndv TroXureXlj Uearna : ^arrvoXoixos therefore, 
mattyarum linctor ; Anglic^, smell-feast: a sort of character which applies so well to 
RuBETA, Petronius, & Co., (who, it is known, will puff any tavern for a hot 
dinner, and who fall into raptures when the master of a steamer invites them down to 
TOortodeZZa-sandwiches and iced champagne,) that, had I time to spare, I would leave 
my rhymes no longer extemporaneous, but amend them for the sake of the last line. 

(1) Bentley scoffs at both the old readings. Uu.TK>xoi%oi is considered above, and is cer- 
tainly very suspicious. But for M:«To«io^o<%b;, though the prosodian may object to it, the 
interpreter cannot be so nice. Qui frivolas res consectatur, eas velut delambensj (Steth. 
Thes.,) is not only a natural sense, but a sense which is applicable to the occasion. In this 
light, the greatest objection to the phrase is that it is weak, and, coming at the tail of the 
long string of characteristic epithets and epithetic titles which StrepsiadeS is willing to 
have applied to himself, makes but " a lame and impotent conclusion." The emendation of 
Bentley (which is that adopted by Brunck) is perhaps the true reading. See, however, 
what SchUtz says of it, vol. i. of his edition of Aristophanes, Part ii. p. 349, (Lips. 1821.) 

* * 

35 



274 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

In fine, in all things yours and Dulness' tool, 625 
Unrivall'd whether mountebank or fool ! 

Thus pray'd the hero. Meantime, denser grows 
The mist : melt into shade the goddess' clothes. 
And floating mouth and eyes, and crocodiline toes. 
But still the drawl ethereal caught the ear, 630 

While thus spoke Cant the adoring garreteer : — 

Well hast thou pray'd. Ere twice ten weeks, my 
son. 
This isle shall feel thy ministry begun. 
For Ignorance to Impudence shall grant 
A loan to aid our projects. Trust in Cant. 635 

And now, adieu ! Before three nights expire, 
Another roof shall shield thee, fresh attire. 
But, O my child ! one warning ere we part : 
Guard from the fair that too susceptive heart. 



been served under the printer of a thing of this kind : a supposition 
altogether necessary, if we are to believe this scene is allegorical. 

630. — ethereal — ] Muretus reads celestial; falsely, and with little 
reflection. The voice cannot be called either celestial or infernal, as 
these goddesses are neither of Heaven, nor (though on intimate terms 
with the inhabitants of this latter empire) of Hell, but, as will be seen 
in another part of the poem, the denizens of atmospheric space; being 
demons which hover round humanity, and, like their various fellows, 
conflict incessantly with the opponent virtues, except where they have 
complete possession of the man, or, as in the present instance, are his 
friends and ministers by birthright. * * 

638, &c. But, O my child! etc.] The arrangement effected with her 
godchild, Cant no more compels herself to plain speaking, but contin- 
ues in her favorite style. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 275 

Wo 's me ! I hear thee blubber at the thought. 

Samson, thy locks are shorn, thy strength is naught, 

And Dalilas shall lead thy wit astray ! 

Be it ; but only in a moral way. 

As in the day when Zion's curse began ; 

When seven virgins seiz'd upon one man, 645 

Saying : Not for thy rank, or wealth, we sigh. 

But, mercy ! make us women ere we die ; 

So maids shall flock to thee. O be they spurn'd ! 

Before, like Israel's king, thy heart is turn'd. 

Write of the sex, incessant ; but so write, 650 

As if thou woo'd it in thy soul's despite : 

Clap on the virgin honor of thy brain 

Rachel's twin garters and her tinkling chain ; 

And let not Egypt's fleshpots fire the vein ; 



Ver. 644-647. As in the day — etc.] " And in that day seven women shall 
take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our 
own apparel ; only let us be called by thy name, to take away our re- 
proach." Isaiah iv. 1. 

649. — like Israel's king — ] It is a curious and pleasing study to 
trace the mighty current of some strong imagination up to his little and 
remote origin. In this hint from the goddess lay, it seems to us, the 
seed of that luxuriant poem, whose giant branches shadow, with a sol- 
emn yet graceful umbrage, the Sepulchre of David. See our note at 
V. 343. ** 

653, Rachel's twin garters and her tinkling chain :] A custom with 
the Hebrew people, thus explained from Maimonides by the Hugue- 
not Allix : 

— " une coutume que le juste desir de conserver la virginite des filles centre 
toutes sortes d'accidens avait introduite parmi ce peuple. Les filles portaient 
une espece d'entraves appelees dans le Talmud Cevalim; dont voici la description 
faite par le cel^bre fils de Maiemon, MoYse : Cevalim sunt compedes in forma pe- 
riscelidis, inter quos interposuerunt catenulas. lllis compedibus ornabant se virgines, 



276 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

But live on salep, arrow-root, and sago, 655 

Thou of absurdities thrice-blest farrago ! 

She ceas'd. Down rush'd the night. The voice 
no more 
Rous'd the dull echoes of the attic floor. 
Lull'd by his hopes, the hero ceas'd to weep, 
PeePd his sole onion, and lay down to sleep. 660 

But the twin-power cleave the star-lit air 
To Mother Weasel's den of privy pray'r. 
In their first shape, as deacons, welcome light. 
And with the sisters howl the livelong night. 

Thrice wan'd three months. Then Dulness, with 
a smile, 665 

Saw her son's genius tickle all the isle. 
His gallimaufry girls and grandames bought. 
And lik'd a page that sav'd the toil of thought. 

Once learn to float, the waters ever please. 
Till, like a duck, you paddle at your ease. 67o 

Charm'd with the plash he made, the gazetteer 
Plung'd deeper in, and flounder'd spite of fear : 



ut non intercederent passu magno, ne contingeret ipsis damnum in virginitate sua." 
Reflex, sur les 5 Livres de MoYse, pour etablir la Verite de la Relig. Chretienne : 
2e Part., chap. xx. p. 258, {Lond. 1687.) 



It is this guard-chain to which the prophet Isaiah alludes (iii. 18) : — "In 
that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments (about 
their feet, the translators add). 

Rachel, of course, is put in the text for any Jewish maiden. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 277 

For when men's laughter reach'd him from the 

* banks, 
He deem'd it praise, and cut still rarer pranks ; 
Div'd on his belly, swam with dash and thump, 675 
Here jerk'd a heel, and there display'd the rump : 
Then, issuing from the pool, with ooze all grim, 
Ye gods ! he crj'd, what royal sport to swim ! 

Thence Masonry her bright primordial fetches ; 
To this we owe your fire, seraphic Sketches ! 680 



Ver. 673, 674. For when menh laughter reach'' d him from the banks, — He 
deemed Upraise, and cut still rarer pranks.] — " tam frigidis dictis captans 
risum, ut ipse ssepius, quara dicta sua, rideretur." Thom. Mori Eq. 
UtopicB Lib. 1. [p. 49, ed. Foulis, 1750.) 

679. — Masonry — ] Some years ago there was a violent excite- 
ment caused in the state of New York, and elsewhere in the Union, by 
the supposed abstraction, by a party of Free Masons, of one Morgan, 
who had divulged their mystery. Party lays hold of any thing ; and 
soon Masonry and Anti-masonry became the rallying-shout of opposing 
political factions. The great Rubeta pounced upon the occasion ; as, 
more recently, the imposture of a vagabond swindler, the calumnies of 
an apostate nun, and the infatuation of a parcel of soft-headed doctors, 
all in succession, furnished him with similar quarry. Were a fit to seize 
upon the people of Manhattan to eat eggs at the side instead of the 
end, we should have forthwith, from the same sublime pen, a treatise on 
the advantages and disadvantages of the lateral infraction, &c. Like 
Sir John of the belly, there is not a dangerous action can peep out his 
head, but he is thrust upon it.* 

6S0. — Sketches ! ] " As to the title of these vols., etc. the author 
has chosen it exactly for its fitness, etc. He desires not to deceive the 
public, and therefore tells them honestly at the threshold, that these 
volumes contain 'tales and sketches, — such as they are,' and 
nothing more.'''' An assertion which we assure the reader is strictly 
true. * * 

* U PL Hen. IV. A. i. Sc. 2. 



278 THE VISION OF RUBETA 

Writ for a fashion, and to prove the pen 
Fits other hands than those of letter'd men. 
There Washington is seen to tread the floor 
In the same pumps Alcides us'd before ; 

Ver. 681. Writ for a fashion — ] " Everybody Avrites books now-a-days, 
and one does not care to be singular." Exegetical Epistle of the 
Tales and Sketches — 5*. A. Th. A. 

Ay, ay, 

stulta est dementia, cum tot ubique 

Vatibus occurras, periturse parcere chartae ! * 

681, 682. — and to prove the pen — Fits other hands than those of let- 
tered men.] 

" One of Solomon's objections to 'the making of many books ' seems to have 
arisen from the fact which he asserts immediately afterwards, that ' much study is 
a weariness of the flesh.' But with all his wisdom the Hebrew monarch seemed 
little aware [How the deuse should he, my dear Colonel ? he was not a prophet] 
of the facility with which the article would be manufactured in these latter days.'' 
Exeg. Ep. &c. 

Having our eyes on the T. and S., we Avill countersign this, more 
p(Bdag., Approved. 

By the by, it may please a man of the Sketcher's singular modesty, to 
know that he has accidentally trodden in the steps of an author once 
very famous ; for we have not the least idea that the author of the Alys- 
ter. Bridal would knowingly copy so very inferior a writer as Vol- 
taire: — " lis ont raison, lui dis-je, il y a long-temps qu'on se plaint de 
la multitude des livres. Voyez I'Eccl^siaste ; il vous dit tout net qu'on 
ne cesse d'ecrire, scribendi nullus est finis. Tant de meditation n'est 
qu'une affliction de la chair, /regwen^ meditatio afflictio est camis-^^ Lett. 
Chinoises, xii. 

683. There Wasbington is seen to tread the floor ^ — In the same pumps 
Alcides us*d before ;] "The illustrious chieftain himself did not hesitate 
to countenance the elegant amusement by participation, as the heroes 
and statesmen of antiquity — the demigods of the Greeks and Romans — 
had done before him. Mrs. Peter Van Brook Livingston and Mrs. 
Hamilton, were successively honored by the chieftain's hand in a 
cotillion." T. and S., Vol ii. p. 211. 

684, 685. There Madam Hancock culls young Alnwick out, — Or 
charms with blandishments her husband^s gout.'] " Her acquaintance, " 
(Mad. Hancock's,) " was extensive with the principal statesmen and 
warriors of the revolutionary era, and likewise with the officers of the 

* Juv.i. 17,18. ** 



CANTO FOURTH, 279 

There Madam Hancock culls young Alnwick out, 685 
Or charms with blandishments her husband's gout; 

British army, &c. Her conversations, therefore, on suitable occasions, 
abounded with all the savoury recollections and piquant anecdotes 
which, from the lips of a fascinating woman add such a charm to the 
social circle, etc." (Out, hyperbolical fiend ! how vexest thou this man! 
Talkest thou nothing but of ladies?*) — The Sketcher then proceeds to 
say, that " the young Earl of Percy was her decided favourite," and, with 
a rare talent, contrives to embody a trait of simple conjugal tenderness 
in the midst of the most brilliant qualities somewhat opposed to it, as 
follows : — 

" She presided at table with dignity and grace, at once gratifying her 
husband's ambition, and his vanity ; taking her full share in the conver- 
sation, and often leading it, even upon important topics, in those days of 
high political excitement. When her husband was irritable from the 
gout, she soothed him by her blandishments. She loved admiration, and 
obtained it, etc." [Myster. Bridal, chap. ix. Tales and Sk. — Such &c. 
Vol. ii. p. 88.] For our own poor part, we are so charmed with the 
effect of this inserting in the embroidery of the work, that we have for- 
sworn Aristotle for ever, — though, perhaps, it is a specimen of skill 
which it may be difficult to imitate. It beats Kippis on the Bishop of 
DuRHAM,t and is only matched by Justice Shallow,^ or by the book 
of Samuel "§ itself. 

* Twelfth Night : A. iv. Sc. 2. * * 

^ t Dr. Kippis, in his Life of Bishop Butler, has this queer passage : — " His 
benevolence was warm, generous, and diffusive. Whilst he was bishop of Bris- 
tol, he expended, in repairing and improving the episcopal palace, four thousand 
pounds, v/hich is said to have been more than the whole revenues of the bishopric 
amounted to, during his continuance in that see. Besides his private benefac- 
tions, etc." It is very possible, that the biographer considered this expenditure on 
the episcopal palace as the act of a warm, generous, and diffusive benevolence. 
If so, it is a fault of sense and not of style. See Works of Bp. Butler. Vol. I. 
p. xvii. Edin. 1804. 

X Shal. — death, as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all j all shall die. How a 
good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair ? 

Sil. Truly, cousin, I was not there. 

ShaL Death is certain. Is old Double of your town living yet ? 

Sil. Dead, sir. 

Shal. Dead ! — See, see ! — he drew a good bow j and dead ! — he shot a fine 
shoot : * * * Dead ! * * * How a score of ewes now ? 

Sil. Thereafter as they be : a score of good ewes may be worth ten pounds. 

Shal. And is old Double dead ! 

2d Pt. Hen. IV. A. iii. Sc. ii. * * 

§ And Mephibosheth had a young son, whose name was Mica : and all that 



280 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

While poufs of gauze, and ribands in a row^ 
Make the tale glitter like a raree-show. 
All which the Hudson heard of old with joy, 
When SciPio sung them to the growing boj, C90 

And taught his rocks to echo to the sound, 
Till the Sun slept, and walk'd the white-rob'd Moon 
her round. 

Ver. 6S7, ess. While poufs of gauze, etc. ] 

vos tenui prsegnantem stamine fusum 

Penelope melius, levius torquetis Arachne.* 
" Every lane's end, every shop, church, session, hanging, yields a 
careful man work," says Autoltcus : f and thus every thing comes 
handy to Rubeta ; but especially every thing connected with the 
ladies. There is his true element ; c'est un vrai pilier de toilette. For ex- 
ample, in the same Tale or Sketch, mantua-making : — " pouf of 
gauze "... " plain gauze caps, after the form of the elders and an- 
cients of a nunnery," (though what sort of elders and ancients these 
are, it is not said.) JVosler illis, as Casaubon writes of Persius,| JVoster 
illis potissimum qucR rebus addere pondus sunt idonecB, et h^oToua xa) 
ha^yua, petie reguat. " They wore large gauze handkerchiefs upon 
their necks, Avith four satin stripes around the border, two of which were 
narrow and the others broad." 

Rede fads * * carissime, qui ita diligenter studiis incumhis, ut etiam mu- 
nitiora qiKsque perpendas : quod si aliqui facer ent studiosi * * non in tantis 
ignoranticE tenebris versaremur. Barth. Fontius de Mens, et Ponderibus 
in Epist. ad Franc. Sax. quse Persii ad calcem ed. Merul^ Venetiis 
impress. 1494. 

689 — 692. Ml which, etc] 

Omnia quse, Phoebo quondam meditante, beatus 
Audiit Eurotas, jussitque ediscere lauros. 
Hie canit ; pulsse referunt ad sidera valles : 
Cogere donee oves stabulis, numerumque referre 
Jussit, et invito processit Vesper Olympo. 

ViRG. Eel. vi. 82-86; 

dwelt in the house of Ziba were servants unto Mephiboshzth. 

So Mephibosheth dwelt in Jerusalem : for he did eat continually at the 
King's table ; and was lame on both his feet. M Samuel : chap. ix. 12, 13. 

* Juv. ii. 55. ** 

t Winter's Tale : A. iv. Sc. 3. * * 

X In the Prolegomena of his edition. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 281 



Then came Matthias, sold by Scandal's aid ; 
Dragg'd by his own brave efforts from the shade. 



693, 694. Then came Matthias, sold by ScandaVs aid ; — Dragged by 
his own brave efforts from the shade.] The import of the text, in both 
members of the sentence, may be gathered from Rubeta's own review 
of his own book, which is, in epitome, as follows : 

"Matthias," SfC. SfC. 
" Such is the title of a very handsome octodesimo, published this day by the 
great bibliopoles of Cliff-street. The reader will perceive, from the name of the 
author the delicacy of our position in writing a notice of it. But if forbidden by 
modesty " (multum est demissus homo) " to praise the style and maimer in which 
the work is written, it is otherwise with regard to the strange and extraordinary facts 
it developes." * * * " The writer has traced the progress of this lamentable men- 
tal disease " (fanaticism,) ''step by step, through its multitudinous ramijcations, 
and unless he is greatly deceived, he has in this volume presented the public with 
the most extraordinary chapter in the history of delusion, and the mysterious 

WORKINGS OF THE HUMAN MIND, THAT HAS EVER BEEN PUBLISHED OR 

WRITTEN." *** * — "the interest of which will be yet farther enhanced by 

the personal narrative of Mr. and Mrs. [the nam.e given in full, as was 

done in the cases mentioned at v. 246 of Cto. iii.] of the origin of their acquaint- 
ance with the false prophet, and of the proceedings of the whole community at Sing- 
Sing. This narrative forms an extraordinary chapter of the book. 
— But the public will doubtless read and judge for themselves. The Harpers 
have brought out the volume in very pretty style, and we doubt not that it will be 
sought by^the reading public with avidity." N. Y. Comm. Adv. July 8, 1835. 

It has given us much pleasure to separate from the lumber of bil- 
ious pills, corn-plasters, and Russia diapers, this precious evidence of 
Rubeta's virginal modesty, imprinted on the sheets of his journal ; and 
we only regret that its length in the original did not permit us to copy 
it entire. We Avill but add from the same remarkable notice, this one 
sentence, which contains a sentiment so applicable to his own case : — 

"The design of the writer," (says the autocritic,) "was not only to 
make an historical record of facts important in themselves, but to raise a 
warning voice against the indulgence, by Christian professors, of a self- 
righteous, a censorious, and a fanatical spirit, by showing to what ex- 
cesses it may lead." If the reader recollect the facts stated at 
v. 246 of the preceding Canto, or will have the complaisance to turn to 
them he will see at once how justly this Aristides has condemned him- 
self. 

Having added this portion, we proceed, in conclusion, to observe, that 
there is a great similarity between the advertisement just cited and that 
of an equal genius, Mr. Thos. Downing, Carpet-shaker and Oysterman 
36 



282 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Him follow'd Anti-Mary ; last, the sheets 695 

Where Folly's self with Craft and Dotage meets. 

All works of pith ; five sons ; yet, great and small, 

Thy journal holds the marrow of them all. 

Proud journalist ! and bulky-big as proud ! 

And loud as bulky-big ! and dull as loud ! 7oo 

And pert as dull ! and ludicrous as pert ! 

Fit weed (or none fit else) to vegetate in dirt ! 

Alas! a tougher fork should spread, as th' use is. 

The fragrant compost where thy root finds juices. 



in Manhattan ; whose parallel review of his own performances is as 
follows : — 

"To Merchants and Others. — Having received a very superior lot of 
fine oysters, which 1 have pickled in that superior sttjle which I have been accustomed 
to do for my customers for a number of years, I have them already for exportation 
or family use, and shall be happy to fulfil all orders that you may please to favor 
me with. 

" Thos. Downing, 3, 5, and 7 Broad st. 

" N. B. — Collations, suppers, &c., [the decocted rapes and nicely-kneaded 
puffs of the newsman,] served up at the shortest notice." 

Had Mr. Thos. Downing, instead of saying he should be happy to 
fulfil all orders, &c., but wound up his card in the style of Rubeta, and 
declared he did not doubt his oysters would be swallowed by ike eating 
public with avidity^ he would have been in nothing inferior to his rival 
huckster and fellow-classic. As it is, he must yield the palm in modesty 
to the hawker of Matthias. 

695. — Anti-Mary — ] « Visit, &c." * * 

695, 696. — the sheets — Where Folly^s self with Craft and Dotage meets.] 
" Letter, &c." 

699 - 702. Proud journalist ! etc.] 

Sweet harmonist ! and beautiful as sweet ! 
And young as beautiful ! and soft as young ! 
And gay as soft ! and innocent as gay ! 
And happy (if aught happy here) as good ! 

YouNe. JVight Th. — JVarcissa. 



CANTO FOURTH. 283 

Yet should kind Heaven impart me length of days, 705 
And the soul worthy to exalt thy praise, 
Not Bowles' dull Birthday should surpass my strain, 
Nor lovely Hunt's bold Captains, Sword and Pen, 

Ver. 705 - 712. Yet should kind Heaven ■— etc.] 

O mihi tam longse maneat pars ultima vitse, 

Spiritus et, quantum sat erit tua dicere facta ! 

Non me carminibus vincet nee Thracius Orpheus, 

Nee Linus ; huie mater quamvis, atque huie pater adsit, 

Orphei Calliopea, Lino formosus Apollo. 

Pan etiam Arcadia mecum si judice eertet, 

Pan etiam Arcadia dicat se judice victum. 

YiKG.Pollio: 53-59. 
707 and 709. JVot Bowles' dull Birthday should surpass my strain, — 
Though [she] should nod o'er vulgar Woiidsworths lyre,] See the Birth- 
Day, a Poem, by Caroline Bowles, who, following a bad example, 
mistakes, at times, vulgarity for simplicity. Witness the following 
lines : — 

" Lo ! what a train, like Bluebeard's Avives appear. 
So many headless ! half dismembered some. 
With battered faces — eyeless — noseless — grim. 
With cracked enamel, and unsightly sears — 
Some with bald pates, or hempen wigs unfrizzed, 
And ghastly stumps, like Greenwich pensioners ; 
Others mere Torsos — arms, legs, heads, all gone, 
But precious all." * 

Again: — 

" These clove pinks 
Yield not such fragrance as the true old sort 
That spiced our pot-pourrie (my mother's pride) 
With such peculiar richness, and this rose. 
With its fine foreign name, is scentless, pale, 
Compared with the old cabbage." 

And once more: — 

" ' This is Missy's work ! ' 
Quoth the old man, and shook his head and smiled — 
* Lord bless her ! how the child has toiled and moiled 

* See, for the original of this famous picture, the continuation of the Author's note, 
at the end of the volume. * * 



284 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Though that should nod o'er vulgar Wordsworth's 

Ijre, 
And this his mother Dulness still inspire: 7io 



To scrape up all this rubbish. Here 's enough 
To load a jackass ! ' " 

Miss Caroline's dolls, cabbage-roses, and jackasses, are precisely 
drivelling Wordsworth's babies, daisies, and ponies; and the last ex- 
tract, especially, has all that trifling vulgarity, or, to use Mr. Words- 
worth's own expression, "the triviality and meanness both of thought 
and language," * which distinguish the taste of that " mild apostate 
from poetic rule," f who would teach the world, that to copy nature is to 
paint her only in the stable and the nursery, and that lofty language, 
magnificence of imagery, and that art which, by selecting the more 
striking features of a scene, and discarding all that is little, and unin- 
terestingly accessory, curtails description of its tediousness while en- 
hancing its effect, that these are quite unworthy of a poet, nay, are to 
be directly avoided;]: such being the decision of him 
" Who both by precept and example shows 
That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose." § 

[The rest of the note being too long to be inserted here, it will be found 
continued at the end of the volume. * * ] 

708. — Hunt's hold Captains, Sword and Pen i"] " Capt. Sword and 
Capt. Pen. A Poem. By Leigh Hunt. With some Remarks, &c." 

" As a specimen of Mr. Hunt's versification," (says some one of the 
English magazines, — we do not know which, as we copy from the N. Y. 
Albion,) " and of his graphic power, take the following excerpt from a 
battle-scene : — 



* Preface to the Lyrical Ballads. 

i Byron of Wordsworth, in the English Bards, SfC. — We are told, that, in a 
recent number of an American review, Mr. Wordsworth is pronounced to be a 
critic, and Lord Byron not to have been such ! As for his lordship's critical abilities, 
we know too little of his compositions to pronounce upon them, but we do know, 
that the man who wrote the above line on the poet of the Lakes showed, at a boy's 
age, the judgment of a man, while the author of the Lyrical Ballads has never been 
otherwise than puerile, saving when apostate from his own rules. 

X " There will also be found in these volumes," (says Mr. Wordsworth in his 
Preface,) " little of what is usually called poetic diction ; I have taken as much 

PAINS to avoid it AS OTHERS ORDINARILY TAKE TO PRODUCE IT [ ! ! ! ]." For 

the " pains," credat Judceus. ' 

§ English Bards, ^c. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 285 

John Waters even, should he brush the string, 
Waters should drop his " conch " to hear me sing ! 

« Death for death ! The storm begins ; 

Rush the drums in a torrent of dins ; 

Crash the muskets, gash the swords ; 

Shoes grow red in a thousand fords ; 

Now for the flint, and the cartridge bite ; 

Darkly gathers the breath of the fight, 

Salt to the palate and stinging to sight ; 

Muskets are pointed they scarce know where ; 

No matter: Murder is cluttering there : 

Reel the hollows: close up ! close up! 

Death feeds thick ; and his food is his cup. 

Down go bodies, snap burst eyes ; 

Trod on the ground are tender cries; 

Brains are dashed against plashing ears ; 

Hah ! no time has battle for tears ; 

Cursing helps better — cursing, that goes 

Slipping through friends^ blood, athirst for foes'. 

What have soldiers with tears to do ? — 

We, who this mad-house must now go through, 

This twentyfold Bedlam, let loose with knives, 

To murder and stab, and grow liquid with lives, 

Gasping, staring, treading red mud. 

Till the drunkenness^ self makes us steady of bloods " 
We think the entire " specimen " must pass for unrivalled : but the par- 
ticular passages we have put in italic type " contain" (as Messrs. Saun- 
ders & Otley say of Mr. Willis's verse) "the true essence of 
poetry." 

708. — vulgar WoRDSwoRTB — ] Consult the Appendix. * * 

711, 712. John Waters even, should he brush the string, — WoXers 
should drop his " conch " to hear me sing ! ] John Waters is a favorite 
correspondent of the judicious Petronius's. We shall, as occasion 
serves, trace his poetical progress for the benefit of the reader, who will 
thus be enabled to form a correct opinion of the acute judgment, deli- 
cate taste, rich experience, and critical honesty of the Manhattanese 
" Arbiter Elegantiarum." John''s first step was as follows : — 
" For the New York American. 
" The following lines, &c. &.c. 

"John Waters, Hys Springe. 
* * * * 

'' Nought was more pure, agayne I '11 synge, 
Fitte draughte for Fancie's daughters ; 



286 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

What stores of wit and wisdom mingle here ! 
What nursing cares for chastity appear ! 



The honest manne that own'd that springe 
Chang'd a faire name, to call hymselfFe John Waters ! 

*' Howe stoode the cattel in yt shade, 

Moyst'ning their hoofes by the coole slreame ! 
Car'd they for foode? — Their choijce ivas made, 
Like those who dreame of love, and love agayne to dreame. 

" The Traveller bless'd it as he came ; 

Prays'd the flatt stones that round it stoode, 
Its mossy tronke, — ' Had it no name ? ' 
He quafF'd agayne — ' Waters ! the verie name is goode ! ' 
Etc. etc. etc. 

" John Waters." 
Ah, exquisite simplicitie ! 

Welle dost thou imitate the songe 
Of auncient times, for seem'th it me 
Its polish and its witt to thee alyke belonge, 
John. 

This " Springe," which, as the gentle Petronius says, " flowed 
so charmingly through the columns of the American," produced a very 
singular effect for a spring ; it " opened a new fount of sweet waters in 
a neighbouring State." [JV. Y.Jim., Aug. 27, 1837.) The new fount was 
something clearer than the parent spring, and altogether of too pleasant 
a water, though not very deep, to have its marvellous production from 
such a muddy source. Thereupon, Petromus calls it beautiful, and 
bids John Waters and the fountain B. (the new one) "sing on" Where- 
upon John Waters issues out in a new channel of double torrent-force 
tumbling precipitous. We extract the introductory lay, and the third 
stanza, of which Petronius so justly asks, "Who has seen finer lines .^" 
But stay ! we must begin with the beginning, and let the same usher 
introduce the poet here, that goes before him in the journal of the 
Muses : — 

"John Waters, on his SpnT/o-^, pours forth another most delightful melody to- 
day. The poetry of the mighty deep — and few things under the sun are so poetical 
— has truly inspired this lay, of which the imagery is at once natural and sublime. 
Who has seen finer lines than the third stanza ? 

" [For the New York American.^ 
" To B. 
" Know'st ihou John Waters ? Know'st him ' well,' dear B. ? 
His boast might well be, to be known of thee, 
Being of love celestial ! — wit, — song, — mirth, — 
That by green pastures lead'st thy flock o'er earth ! 



CANTO FOURTH. 287 

Here too the world finds study held in scorn, 7i5 

And sees, with open eyes, a critic born ; 



Not the less surely heavenward, I opine, 

For such one index of the life divine ; 

And, while with thy rich blessing we are grac'd, 

Who doubts if hands Episcopal were plac'd, 

Or, o'er thy brow, the blessed sign were trac'd ! — 

Would thou wert ours ! — then, ours the stainless truth, 

The eloquence that charms gray beard and youth. 

Conviction shedding o'er the last ; the former, ruth. 

— In distant glades I caught thy sportive strain, 

In fancy trode with thee the waves again. 

And sought a lyre should echo thine, — in vain — 

Yet once my fingers o'er a Conch I threw, 

And since my verse some favor wears with you, 

List the rude notes from this sea-shell I drew." 

Quere;— In the third line of this introductory Zai/, "Being of love 
celestial " ; Anchises ? or .Eneas ? 

All the rest, we confess, is beyond our comprehension, and is there- 
fore to be considered perfectly sublime. Who has ever seen a finer line 
than the twenty-sixth ? 

" Yet once my fingers o'er a Conch I threw." 
Delicious that! "Yet once, etc.": perfectly perfect ! so descriptive of 
the instrument, his throiving his fingers over a Conch! (has Ashton any 
of the article on sale ? ) so expressive of the act, "my fingers o'er, etc. 
and, lastly, so poetical, "Yet once my fingers o'er a Conch I threw,— 
And, &c. &c." ,^. .,^ 

We should willingly quote the whole of this mtelligible and most 
« delightful melody," but can only spare space for the great unsurpass- 
able, " the third stanza " : — 

" But no ! — no line of foam, — 
No long-resounding roll that booms afar,— 
No battling wave from elemental war. 
That comes to die at home," — 
True, we do not understand the idea about the wave's coming to die 
at home ; but it must be very fine : — 

— IloXXa [ff a i] v<r ayxZ- 

''EvSov Ivt) <pa^iT^as 
^uvavra, ffwiroiffiv, 

eh, John ? Which is all right. — And here rest, darling, for the present. 
* Find. Olymp. ii. 149. * * 



288 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Born for this task, to cleanse the spotted page, 
And prop the morals of a sliding age. 



Ver. 711. — should he brush the string,] John's conch we judge, from the 
action of the musician's^ng-ers, to be a stringed instrument : — 

" Yet once my fingers o'er a Conch I threw, 
And since my verse some favor finds with you. 
List the rude notes from this sea-shell I drew." 

We cannot believe, that any thing so exquisite could be blown out of 
a common Conch. 

713. — mingle here!] In the "journal," doubtless. See v. 698. 

# * 

jb. — stores of wit — ] We have not now to observe for the first 
time, that the Colonel is distinguished for facetiousness, 

joco mordente facetus, 

Et salibus vehemens intra pomaeria natis ; * 

but we have yet to give a specimen of his peculiar talent. In his paper 
of April 24, 18 — , f noticing a juggler, (the honest creature notices any- 
body that will pay him,) he says : " His doings constitute a very pleas- 
ing and memorable share of the evening's entertainment at the Museum, 
although there are many other great attractions — Major Stevens, for 
example, who commands admiration by being very small [precisely so 
printed]." Funny fellow ! " an I had but one penny in the world, thou 
should'st have it, to buy thee gingerbread." — " O, an the heavens were 
so pleased that thou wert but my bastard! what a joyful father would'st 
thou make me ! " J 

But perhaps the best specimen of his manner should be found in his book, where 
it is probable some pains were taken to perfect it. Thus the commencement of 
chap. xi. of the Myst. Brid, j which is printed precisely as follows. " The brisk 
reveillee did not rouse the valiant in-mates of this important ow^post from their 
slumbers^ &c." * * 



* Juv. ix. 10. * » 

t The year, I believe, is 1835 ; that being the time when I made the selections 
for illustrations of this part of the satire, which was intended to have been written 
and published in that year, though in another form. I beg that this note will be 
particularly observed ; because the remoteness of the date might lead one to sus- 
pect that I had hunted for these wretched examples of folly, insignificance, and, 
in some cases, immorality, in the newsman ; whereas they are always passages 
taken at random from his and other papers just as they fell under my eye. Every 
day will furnish the like, in every year. 

X Love's Labor^s Lost : A. v. Sc. 1. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 289 

Here unknown wits from paradise are driven, 

And the known lift their tinselPd horns to heaven. 72o 

Ver. 714. What nursing cares for chastity appear ! ] This chaste gentle- 
man publishes, on his first page, an account of the propagation of forni- 
cation by the whites among the Hottentots, with certain judicious 
and succulent remarks upon the preference of Hottentot women for white 
men, and, lest the little girls should omit to read it, he inserts a para- 
graph in the body of his paper, directing them to an " article of instruc* 
tive interest." See JV. Y. Comm. Adv. of April 25th, 1835. 
Frontis nulla fides : quos enim non vicus abundat 
Tristibus obscenis ? * 
715, 716. Hei-e too the world finds study held in scorn, — And sees, ivith 
open eyes, a critic born ;] Criticus noster nascitur, non fit. It will hardly 
be believed, out of New York, that half of the mass of ordinary readers 
are in that city governed in their literary tastes by such a man as Ru- 
BETA ; a man so totally unfit, as well from defective education as by 
reason of his native imbecility, for a task which, according to the master 
of the sublime, is the last fruit of much experience.^ The other half is un- 
der the rival tutorage of Petronius : of which, presently. Young saya 
truly, though somewhat clumsily : — 

Unlearned men of books assume the care, 
As eunuchs are the guardians of the fair. J 
717. Born for this task, to cleanse the spotted page,] As Baxter sayg 
of Rich. Bentley: — "Magnus Bentleius, natus emaculandis GrsB- 
corum scriptis." Annot. in Hor. Serm. Lib. i. Sat. 2. edit. Zeunii* 
Lond. 1809, 8vo. p. 303. * * 

See, for illustration of the text, the note to v. 725, 726, below. A 
pleasant contrast to the case there cited is furnished by this natural 
critic's observations on Roderick Random, (in 1836). " Roderick," he 
mildly says, " is sometimes coarse, but the very mirror of human life and 
character, and irresistibly amusing. But who needs to be told this ? " 
No one ; but Ave should wonder to hear it from Rubeta's virgin lips, 
Avhich abominate all naughtiness, did we not know a thing or two : — 

Dot veniam corvis, vexat ctnsura columbas.§ 
Do, dear Colonel, since established reputation has such weight with you, 

*Juv. ii. 8. ** 

t — h y^P ■'■'<'»' X6y(x}v Kp'iffis iToWrjs iari neipai reXevToiov kinyivvrjua. LoNG. 
Sect. vi. * * 

X Love of Fame, ii. * * 

§ Juv. ii.63. ** 

37 



290 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Here hoodwinked Malice takes her biding rest, 
And makes e'en crime a theme of pleasant jest, 

do, the next thing, let us have Cleland's modest work, * which, we 
would be sworn for it, has never been out of print since it was burnt by 
the hangman. 

718. And prop the morals of a sliding age.'] 

felicia tempera, quae te 

Moribus opponunt ! habeat jam Roma pudorem.f 

" Par-la on peut voir que [le Sieurde Galimatias n^est] pas seulementun 
habile rheteur, comme Quintilien et comme Hermogene, mais un philo- 
sophe digne d'etre mis en parallele avec les Socrate et les Caton. Son livre 
[The Tales and Sk.] n'a rien qui demente ce que je dis. Le caractere 
d'honnete homme y parait par-tout, et ses sentimens ont je ne sais quoi 
qui marque non seulement un esprit sublime, mais une ame fort elevee 
au-dessus du commun." The reader has had proof of this assertion in 
the large extracts we have given from it ; and, for our own part, we can 
add, with the author by whose mouth we have just been speaking, " Je 
n'ai done point de regret d'avoir employ^ quelques-unes de mes veilles a 
debrouiller un si excellent ouvrage, que je puis dire n'avoir ^te entendu 
jusqu'ici que d'un tres-petit nombre de savans." Boileau sur Longin. 
Priface de la Trad, du Traits du Sublime. * * 

719, 7-20. Here unknown ivitsfrom paradise are di-iven^ — And the known 
lift their tinselVd horns to heaven.] When writers of little celebrity are 
concerned, thus speaks the candid newsman-critic: — 

" The Siege of Vienna. Translated from the German of Madame Pichler. 
Philadelphia. Key & Biddle. Published in England as one of the numbers of 
Leitch Ritchie's Library of Romance, — a collection as uniformly bad and worthless 
as any of which we have any knowledge. The present work is worthy of the com- 
pany in which it first appeared." 

This is said of a collection where appeared, if I mistake not. The 
JVowlans by Banim, — the most powerful romance since the days of M atu- 
RiN, from the best writer of fiction (saving always the truly excellent 
Miss Edgeworth) since the death of Scott. 

Now let us see how the honest man speaks of a writer of great celeb- 
rity. Here he fawns as much as he barked before. However, he is not 
singular in this respect, as nearly every editor in the Union has been 
guilty of equal puppyism ; although, in reality, a tamer book than the 
Crayon Miscellany has rarely been written in these times. 

* Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. t Juv. ii. 38. 



CANTO FOURTH. 291 



Views human frailty with the Devil's own grin, 
And chuckles grossly at suspected sin ; 



" A Tour on the Prairies. By Washington Irving. Being the first number 
of the ' Crayon Miscellany.' Philadelphia. Carey, Lea, & Blanchard. 

" We have hurried through Geoffrey Crayon's pages, — the interest is too great 
and constant to admit of that deliberate pertisal, on the first introduction, ivhicli is 
demanded for the full and perfect enjoyment, — and vi^ithout waiting for the second 
and less eager but more delightful reading rviili which we most assuredly intend to 
purchase several hours of high gratification, hasten to describe, although, it may 
be, feebly and inadequately, the impression they made upon us. We prepared 
ourselves for admiration j we fancied we could anticipate the mode in which the 
observant eye and poetic mind of Irving" (God forgive us !) " had dealt with the 
wonders of that strange region," &c. &c. " but it needed a fancy like his own to 
form a conception of the grace and beauty ivith %ohich they ivould come before us in his 
limning." Etc. " His volume is a gallery of pictures, but they surpass the pro- 
ductions of the artist's pencil, for we see them move and act in the stirring im- 
pulses of their wild na^wre [the de Til ! the pictures ?]. We do more," etc. "We 
enjoy the lavish feast that quickly follows the return of the successful hunters j 
fat haunches of venison, — the delicious buffalo-hump, — pheasants, and wild tur- 
keys without number [what a mouth !], — bears' paws, and huge flakes of luscious 
honey, the plunder of some mighty bee-tree that has just been felled." Etc. " These 
and such as these are the objects and the scenes portrayed in Geoff. Crayon's rich 
portfolio ; and not in sketches merely, but in highly wrought and finished pictures." 

What more, if we omit the " bufialo-hump " and " bears' paws," 

could be said of the best scene in Ivanhoe ? ay, or in the Iliad ? so true 

it is, that 

"fools admire, but men of sense approve." 

JVote. Although our chief aim is levelled at the newspaper-press, yet 
should we be ashamed to quote so largely the commonplaces of a com- 
mon blockhead, a man who does not even understand the language in 
which he affects to write, could we not add, to our mortification as an 
American, that the same gross sycophancy, and nearly the same ignor- 
ance of composition, disgrace the two most not^tble of our Reviews. 

723, 724. Views humau frailty with the DeviVs own grin, — And chuckles 
grossly at suspected sin; ] In his paper of Jan. 18th, 1838, speaking of a 

new publication, the " evangelical Christian " says of its author : " 

* has been quite in a confessing mood of late — and if all accounts 

are true, she has an ample store of material for the confessional." One 
would have thought that the sex might have saved her, with the " chival- 
rous " t RuBETA ; but Scandal is not dainty in its diet, and it is always 
safer levelling at a woman, especially where an ocean is between. For 

* The name is printed in full in the journal. * * 
t See Canto second, v. 132, note. * * 



292 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

While Envy, smarting at a w^oman's fire, 725 

Bids coxcomb Gallantry in rage expire. 

O priceless sheet ! where modern ethic light 

Makes private vantage still the test of right, 

(Divine morality ! whose lofty part 

Finds its best teacher in the niggard heart.) 730 



the same language, applied to any lady in his own country, its author 
had tasted a rope's end. 

725, 726. While Envy, smarting at a woman's Jire, — Bids coxcomb Gal- 
lantry in rage expire.] Though, as we have repeatedly seen, Rubeta 
to the sex in general is a very Troilus, authoresses are excepted. In 
the calumny we have cited in the note preceding, this modest and wor- 
thy man goes on to say : — " We never read any thing of 's, 

if we can help it, and therefore cannot say what her" [title of the book] *' are 
like." This is pretty cool impudence for the scribe of a newspaper, and 
a two-shilling pamphleteer, to spit upon one of the most talented women 
in Great Britain, whose worst paragraph, or most insipid line, he 
would hang himself to-morrow only to be thought able to have written. 

728. Makes private vantage still the test of right,] In the N. Y. 
Comm. Adv. of Jan. 24, 1837, the moral right of the members of a legis- 
lative body to receive stock in a bank for whose charter they may have 
voted is openly defended. Hear the good man : — 

" The sparring in the Senate, moreover, in regard to the distribution of bank 
stock among its members, is creditable neither to that body, nor to the members 
who participate therein. Suppose Colonel Young sold a lot of bank stock at an 
advance, in Waterford ? And suppose General Maison subscribed and received 
stock in a bank in his own county, or elsewhere ? Both gentlemen had an un- 
doubted right to do so. Nor is corruption necessarily inferable in either case. 
When a bank, or any other joint stock company, has been incorporated, and the 
subscription books are opened to the public, every citizen has an equal right to 
subscribe." 
Again : 

" Has not a Judge as good a right to invest his capital as another man ? " Etc. 
"l£ he wishes to invest a few hundred dollars in bank stock, because he is a Judge 
does it follow that he must be debarred the privilege of obtaining it at par, and be 
compelled to purchase at a premium ? TTiese are paltry vieivs of public matters, 
and we cannot but think that there is a degree of squeamishness abroad, which is far 
more nice than wise." 

729, 730. Divine morality ! whose lofty 'part — Finds its best teacher in 
the niggard heart.] " International Copy Right. — We do not know" 



CANTO FOURTH. 293 



Go on ! no subject known thy page but suits, 
From arcade baths to Cincinnati's brutes. 



(says Petronius) "when we have seen a more modest! paragraph, than 
the annexed, from the Comm. Adv. of some days ago: 

" International Copij Right. — In compliance with the request of the British 
authors, backed by the solicitations of some fifteen or twenty native writers, who 
know not what they ask, the committee to which the matter was referred, in the 
Senate, have reported a bill for giving copy right to foreign books. It will be 
amusing, if the bill passes, to see in what a hurry the native authors will be to 
beg for its repeal, about a year hence, when they find the market glutted with 
reprints of all the worthless volumes that issue from the press in London, by 
means of agencies established here by the London publishers — the worst books 
in greatest numbers, because the publishers have least to pay for them to the au- 
thors. The wise petitioners think that American authors will command better 
prices, when the international copy right is established 3 very likely, when the 
business of publishing is mainly taken away from the American publishers, and 
thrown into the hands of English houses, who, of course, will be anxious to pay 
large sums for American copy rights ! Oh, the wisdom of political and literary 
tinkers ! " [Eugepas .'] 

"Now, to say nothing of the ' literary tinkers ' — who ask for such 
a bill, and who, perhaps^ can bear the sarcasms of the Commercial — 
it is just possible the public may rate the wisdom of the ' political tin- 
kers ' in the Senate, who reported the bill in question — viz. Messrs. 
Clay, Preston, Buchanan, Webster, and Ewing, of Ohio — as high as 
that of the Commercial Advertiser, and deem them quite as disinterest- 
ed as the publishers, in whose behalf the Commercial steps forth — 
unpaid, we presume — as its paragraph comes not in the shape of an 
advertisement." JV*. Y. American. 

But, my dear Petronius, you do not consider, that Messrs. Clay, 
Preston, Buchanan, Webster, and Ewing of Ohio, are not authors, 
while RuBETA of Manhattan is. Impeach his liberality in such a mat- 
ter! Why, man, he is a very Maecenas, a Proculeius, a Fabius, a 
Cotta in fine, another Lentulus ! * 

731. — no subject known thy page but suits.] Rubeta himself be- 
ing every thing. 

Ede, quid ilium 

Esse, putes ? quemvis homin::ui secum attulit ad nos, 
Grammaticus, rhetor, geometres, pictor, aliptes, 

* An allusion to these lines of Juvenal : 

Quis tibi Maecenas ? quis nunc erit aut Proculeius, 

Aut Fabius ? quis Cotta iterum ? quis Lentulus alter ? {Sat. vii. 95.) 



294 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Thy correspondents too shall lend their skill, 
And thou, their father, guide each scurvy quill. 
And see in wit (whose essence never dies) 735 

Thy Joel Downings mount thee to the skies. 



Augur, schoenobates, medicus, magus, omnia novit. 

esuriens in ccelum, jusseris, ibit. 

Juv. iii. 74. 

Grammaticus, everywhere : rhetor, in his lectures ; geomelres, when 
he travelled to Montreal ; pidor, as you will presently see ; aliptes, 
see the next note ; jJugur, in the affair of Matthias ; schanohates, rope- 
dancer, tumbler, — equivalent in modern times to a merry-andreiv ; 
medicus, see Horne's advertisement, and the like, in his paper : magus, 
in discovering the imposture of Misses Monk and Partridge by the 
rabdoraanchial properties of his " iron-pointed cane "; omnia novit, no- 
body doubts ; esuriens in calum, jusseris, ibit, as he went there of his 
own accord on a full stomach, [Letter on An. Magn.) * * 

732. —arcade laths — "l See N. Y. C. A. May 22d, 1835, where 
the newsman does his proper office in eulogizing (doubtless for which 
"he has his reward") those filthy recesses of cleanliness, which hir- 
cum olent, or did then, exhale the very quintessence of boots and moist 
stockings, the " Arcade Baths " in Manhattan. 

732. — Cincinnati's brutes.] " Among those who flourish with the 
ablest of the day, is a ' whole hog,' weighing one thousand four hun- 
dred pounds. He is said to be fully equal to the most resolute and de- 
termined 'of the whole hog family. It is not yet known how this im- 
portant personage will vote." " Correspondence of the Comm. Adv.'\ 
May 22, 1835. 

736. Thy Joel Downings — ] Rubeta, like Cjesar, is ambitious: 
the success o? Major Downing stimulated his attic bowels to a like con- 
ception, and out comes the Major's cousin, "Sargent Joel."* Upon my 
honor, Manhattan may congratulate herself on the fertility of a womb, 
which teems with such bouncing humor as the following : — 

" Hold your jaw, you fool, says he, havent I got a lick-spittle about me, that 

* In the same paper which sonat strigiUbus ,{\) cleanses the Arcade baths, and 
has the communication about " the whole hog family." 



(1) bucca foculum excitat. et sonat unctia 

Strigilibus Juv. iii. 262. 



CANTO FOURTH. 295 

But spare the arts ! of pictures, O, beware ! 

No impudence can make thee specious there. 

Ah happy, hadst thou let Ball Hughes alone. 

Nor drawn silk stockings on a leg of stone ! 740 

Still happier, if old bearded Jerom's skull 

Prove not thy own imperviously dull, 

will answer the purpose for a month or so, while I go to the South ? Dont you 

know * ? " 

Go on, my lady ; drink chocolate, consult Albertus de Secretis, and 
Aristotle's chef-d^ceuvre, and let us have many more such christen- 
ings. Meantime thy correspondent shall drive together all the little 
Corporation-pigs, and sacrifice for thy delivery. 

Montium custos nemorumque, Virgo, 

Quae laborantes utero puellas 

Ter vocata audis, adimisque leto, f 
Favor a Colonel! 
739, 740. Ah happy, hadst thou let Ball Hughes alone, — JVor drawn 
silk stockings on a leg of stone ! ] There was a remarkably fine statue 
of Alexander Hamilton in the Merchants' Exchange at New York, 
previously to the great fire. It was the work of Mr. Hughes, an Eng- 
lish sculptor, now, I believe, a citizen of the U. States. Of this mon- 
ument, thus speaks our virtuoso: — 

" The costume is that of the time in which Hamilton flourished as a statesman 
and public orator ; a coat with upright collar, small-clothes, silk stockings, and the 
prescriptive oratorical mantle or toga, knotted upon the left shoulder and falling 
away behind in a rich mass of flowing drapery ; thus obviating the trim formal 
appearance of the close-setting garments peculiar to enlightened nations." N. Y. 
Comm. Adv. April 20th. | * * 

741, 742. Still happier, if old bearded Jeromes skull — Prove not thy own 
imperviously dull, ] " We promised, last week, to give at an early day 
our impressions of the works of art now in the course of exhibition at 
the gallery of the American Academy in Barclay street ; a promise 
which we now proceed to fulfil with all candor, and the best judgment of 
tvhich we are capable, in relation to a subject demanding so much caution, 
and upon which even the most able critics are so liable to errors This, 
truly, for a man who perhaps never saw an original painting in his life, 

* The name of a high officer of the commonwealth, who, openly, is thus honored. 
And the speaker, of this decent language, is made to be the President of the U. 
States ! 

t HoR. Ode in Dianam. (Carm. iii. 22.) * * 

X See note (*) on the following page. * * 



296 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

And hideous Dalilas sore make thee rue 

Thou ever didst from snuff-box learn virtu ! 

Lo, where the painter's drudge, thj cant that hears, 745 

Daubs on the wall a colonel with long ears ! 

Stick to thy verses : these in time may sell, 

And aid thy patrons much, if polish'd well. 

save his own portrait, and his neighbour's sign, is a specimen of critical 
boldness that does Rdbeta credit. However : — " The St. Jerome " (he 
says) "is what we should call a daub, a badly drawn figure, in an awk- 
ward and unmeaning attitude, with flesh of the color of putty, and 
scarcely an attempt at keeping; or perspective. It is called a Da Vinci in 
the catalogue, but, ivith all deference, we take leave to express our firm 
CONVICTION THAT Da Vinci NEVER TOUCHED IT." Comm.Adv. April 31.* 

743. — hideous Dalilas ] — " the Delilah is hideous, and withal 
badly painted." Ihid. 

744. Thou ever didst from snuff-box learn virtu;] " As for the St. 
Jerome, we marvel how any body that has seen even the engravings 
from Da Vinci's Last Supper, could suppose for a moment that this ivas 
the work of the same master [the engraver.] " lb. 

Representations of the Lord's Supper, after the print by Morghen, 
are, as every body knows, a very common ornament of snuff-boxes. 

# * 

745. 746. Lo, where the painter^s drudge, etc. ] " Sed et in officina im- 
perite multa disserenti [sc. Alexandro] silentium comiter suadebat 
[Apelles],rideri eum dicens a pueris qui colores tererent." PiiiN. Hist. 
ATat. XXXV. 12. 

When the papal nuncio at Vienna preached the funeral sermon of Prince 
Eugene, he compared the illustrious dead to Alexander of Macedon. The 
great Rubeta shares an equal, nay, a greater honor : for Eugene was but the par- 
allel of Alexander in conquest, Rujbeta is his match in art : that wore his lau- 
rels as the price of blood, and thousands of Turks cry out in Hell against him ; 
this patronizes talent which no one else would foster, and the stomachs of ne- 
glected artists rejoice in the discernment of the Angerstein of Church-st. * * 

748. And aid thy patrons much — ] In advertisements of barloers, 
quacks, and others. Indeed, who knows but the poet of Copenhagen 



Porter, which 



" Proves itself exhilarating 
Without being intoxicating," 



* Of 1835, I think : this being another part of the text which was written and 
intended to be published in that year. 



CANTO FOURTH. 297 

With care, no song would equal thine 't is plain^ 
Save Aristotle King's John Waters'^ strain : 750 

(What if the same should rival Phoebus' own ; 
Or match May's rutting bullfrogs' raucous drone ?) 
But for plain sense, or any sense at all, 
Despair to reach it ! backward must thou fall ; 
Jerk'd by Conceit, by Ignorance held down, 755 

While Dulness' solid lead weighs on thy crown* 
Sooner shall King on sacred Irving pounce, 
Or snivelling Anthon cease to mispronounce ; 
Brownlee, whom pedantry with passion balks^ 
Match thee, great Channing! or corrival Hawks; 760 



may be that immortal journeyman of P'hcebus, our own Rubeta? 
There is certainly much affinity, in this sublime couplet, with the psal- 
tnody on David's Sepulchre, 
■isi. What if the same, etc. ] 

Quid si idem certet Phoebum superare canendo ? 

ViRG. Daphn. 9. 

757. — sacred Ibvino — ] Not Irving the preacher, but Mr. 
Washington Irving, who is sacred, to all intents and purposes, with 
Petronius, — as we shall presently discover, to the honor of all jour- 
nalists. * * 

758. Or snivelling Anthon cease to mispronounce ; ] The Rev. Hen. 
Anthon, of St. Mark's (I believe), in New York ; admirable for the 
delicate nasal intonation with which he delights the lovers of pure 
yankee, and for the precision with which he accentuates English words ; 
being to spoken English what Petronius is to the written. 

759. Brownlee, whom, etc. ] Wm. C. Brownlee, Doctor in Di- 
vinity, is a Scotch Presbyterian clergyman of New York, editor of the 
Protestant Vindicator, and author of sundry violent polemical tracts, 
the spleen whereof is entirely bestowed upon that poor devil the Pope, 
whose ear, once a week, burns in the Vatican, through the mere report 
of the audacity of his great enemy, which the birds of the air take pains 



298 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Or ev'ry rogue that jaunts it up and down, 
Licens'd of trade to bleed and purge the town, 
By any but his dupes be thought to share 
Both Warren's talents and the heart of Ware. 
Let Noah, who 's sense, turn critic once a week, 765 
Webb lecture, if he will, who knows to speak ; 



to carry to him regularly. The Doctor is moreover a novelist. But to 
the text : — This reverend gentleman, in addition to the other lights 
which he affords his congregation, is said to make his pulpit a tribunal 
of criticism, where even the poet Byron has been handled so severely, 
because of his naughtiness, that I have no doubt his spirit would rise up 
into the very temple, to rebuke his castigator, did not the violence of the 
foe's gesticulations act in terrorem, and keep the salamander trembling 
in purgatory. * * 

760. Hawks ; ] The eloquent rector of the church of St. Thomas, in 
New York. He has recently been appointed professor of rhetoric and 
oratory at a college in Flushing, (Long Island): and in these two 
offices, for which he is well fitted, he will have, it is hoped, enough to 
occupy him, Avithout giving vent to an un-sacerdotal and un-Christian 
asperity* to enliven that hum-drum magazine, the JsTeiv York Review. 

764. — Wabreit — Ware.] Distinguished physicians, of Boston. 
It gives us pleasure to record the latter gentleman, who has not 
lost his modesty in his success, nor forgotten either his benevolence or 
integrity, in the practice of a profession that more than any other, 
saving one (which we wish, with all our heart, the devil would take, and 
give us back the time we have wasted in it !), tends to make a man for- 
get his humanity by the very means that should most increase it. 
765-772. Let, etc.] 

Excudent alii spirantia mollius gera. 
Credo equidem ; vivos ducent de marmore vultus ; 
Orabunt causas melius, ccelique meatus 
Describent radio, et surgentia sidera dicent: 



* See, for instance, in the N. Y. Review, a violent article upon the Life of Burr. A 
minister of the gospel should be of no party j nor should a teacher of Christian morals 
forget, that, as no man is so good as he would appear to be, so is none so evil as his 
enemies would represent him. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 299 

French leave to Price, whose lyre is mute too soon, 
And pleasantry to Locke, that dumb the moon ; 
But thou, RuBETA ! lie, to serve thy ends ; 
Foul all with slander, even to thy friends ; 770 



Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento ; 
HsB tibi erunt artes ; pacisque imponere morem, 
Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos. 

ViRG. Mn. vi. 848 - 854. 

765. Noah — 1 Editor of the Evening Star, in New York. 

766. JFebb lecture if he will, who knows to speak ;] Editor of the 
Morning Courier, and JV. Y. Enquirer. Mr. Webb has shown himself, 
on more than one occasion, a very able speaker. 

767. French leave to Price, ivhose lyre is mute too soon,] Mr. Joseph 
Price was lately co-editor with Mr. Locke of the Kew Era (a daily 
paper published in New York), and adorned its pages with occasional 
translations from De Beranger, in my opinion among the very best of 
the various versions I have seen of parts of that poet. 

768. Jlnd pleasantry to Locke, that dumb the moon;] See note to 
V. 419 of the first Canto. Mr. Locke is the same gentleman who is 
mentioned in the preceding note. 

770. Foul all with slander, even to thy friends;] Rubeta (as the 
citation which follows will show) does not spare even his own party ; a 
wonderful thing for the editor of a political journal ! But, as Iago says 
of himself, 

it is his nature's plague 

To spy into abuses ; and oft his jealousy 

Shapes faults that are not * : 

and who, on the other hand, would not be ready to exclaim, with 
Othello, 

This fellow 's of exceeding honesty. 

And knows all qualities, with a learned spirit, 

Of human dealings ? f 

However, to the matter illustrative of the text: 

" In general committee of Whig young men, New York, Dec. 15, R. C. Wetmore, 
Pres., in the chair, the following preamble and resolutions were unanimously adopted : 

* Othello, A. iii. Sc. 3. + ^- 



300 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Be the same hypocrite thou still hast been, 
And match the Devil himself in pious sin. 

Next of the file, PETRONIUS (classic name !) 
Stands proudly swelling with his father's fame. 
Not ev'ry hack may boast, whate'er his blood, 775 
A statesman for a sire, wise and good ; 



" Whereas, an article appeared in the Com. Adv. and N. Y. Spectator, of this city, 
some weeks since, signed ' Sydney,' in which the political evils that our country has 
recently suffered were attributed to a radical defect in our Constitutions and frame of 
government, and a preference avowed for a hereditary rather than an elective chief 
magistrate, — SfC ; and whereas the Editor of the Com. Adv., in his comments upon the 
article, and subsequently, has asserted that many of the doctrines and views of ' Sydr 
ney ' are countenanced by a considerable portion of the Whig party — Therefore, 

" Resolved, That we, the Whig, SfC. SfC. do utterly and absolutely disclaim," SfC. 
SfC. " That we yield to none in our reverence for," S^c. S^c. ; " and whoever asserts 
or insinuates the contrary, of the Whigs of New York, is a reckless calumniator,'' SfC, 
^c. " We shall feel greatly obliged to any Editor cherishing sentiments akin to those 
of ' Sydney,' if he will propound them as his own, and not as those of the Wing party." 
SfC* Advertisement in the N. Y. Am., Dec. 19, 1S37. 

773. — classic — ] Because of his qualities of style, and of his au- 
thority in the democracy of letters ; not in reference to the mere sobri- 
quet itself. Call him Signor Rodomonte, or Mons. du Coq-a-Vdne, or 
the King of Cant, it would still be the classic ^^ Signor Rodomonte" the 
classic " Mons. du Coq-a-l'ane, the classic " King of Cant." ** 

774, — proudly swelling with his father'' s fame.'] 

" Dinomaches ego sum. — Suffla. — Sum candidus. — Esto : 
Dum ne deterius sapiat pannucea Baucis, 
Cum bene discincto cantaverit ocyma vernae." f 
776. A statesman — wise and good;] But justice we believe. Had 
this eminent man's advice been taken, the States had now been saved a 
bitter source of contention, which already shakes our system somewhat 
alarmingly : I mean the question of servile emancipation, the which he 
would have settled in the only way that is either feasible or just. * * 

* Had the committee but known the royal birth of their temporary fellow-townsman, 
they would have pardoned in the offspring of Dulness and Levity a misstatement, 
which we think was not owing to an habitual disregard of truth, or to a carelessness of 
assertion arising from that puerile weakness which is the cause of the constant inad- 
vertencies and misstatements of his contemporary Petronius, but the fault of his 
blood, the inheritance transmitted him by his illustrious parentage. * » 

t PERs.iv. 19, 20,21. *» 



CANTO FOURTH. 301 

And there, where Mammon's sons would blush to 

own 
Their humble cradles (were they only known), 
Thou 'rt right, by Heaven! to vaunt thy decent birth, 
And prove a coxcomb through thy father's worth. 780 
Critic hebdomadal ! on whose broad sheet 
Green peas and pictures, books and lobsters meet ; 

Ver. 777. — there, where — etc.] In New York. * * 

780. And prove a coxcomb through thy father^s worth.} 

"veteres avias tibi de pulmone revello."* 

"If you tralineate from your father's mind, 
What are you else but of a bastard kind ? 
Do as your great progenitor has done, 
And by his virtues prove yourself his son. 
JVo father can infuse or ivit or grace.'''' f 

781. Critic hebdomadal ! — ] 

Extraordinary Attraction in The 
N. Y. AMERICAN. 

The public are respectfully informed, that, in order to gratify the juve- 
nile class, the editor has introduced on the second page of his paper a 
parallelogram varying from three to four columns in diameter, for the 
purpose of performing the literary elephant, camel, ponies, and monkeys. 
The general performance of the animals in the parallelogram will take 
place every Saturday evening. 

Mr. Petronius will enter the cages at certain hours throughout the 
week, and remain there till noon on Saturday. Immediately afterwards, 
the animals will be fed in the presence of the spectators. 

Season tickets at $10. 

Admission, 6 d. Children, whether under or over ten years of age, 
admitted at all times, free of other charge than a trifling contribution of 
their delightful little talents. J 

* Pers. v. 92. — ''quia ait," (says Casaubon,) " de pulmone revello, malim intel- 
ligere per veteres avias opinionem nobilitatis et arrog-antiam ventosam, cujus sedes in 
pulmone." Though I do not agree with him in this confined sense, his comment an- 
swers the purpose of illustrating and strengthening the text. 

t Dryden's Wife of Bath's Tale, very slightly altered. ** 
t A parody of the advertisement of the " Zoological Institute/' in the N. Y. Am. 
1836-37. ** 



302 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Where operatic dicta make pretence, — 

Crescendo flash, diminuendo sense ; 

And second-rates, turn'd prima-donnas, strain, — 785 

Da capo, sing that nonsense o'er again ; 

Murders and Suicides take current shape ; 

Here Brutal Outrages, and there a Rape ; 

Tremendous Conflagrations blaze anew ; 

And land and water Pirates get their due ; 790 

O'CoNNEL, Webster, and a little Song, 

In one great omnibus, roll brisk along ! 



Ver. 782. Green peas — and lobsters — ] " Green peas and fine green turtle 
were on the dinner tables at Barnum's City Hotel on Saturday last. At 
Page's Hotel, on Saturday, she.epshead, lobsters, and green peas, were 
served up." M Y. Am. May 13, 1835. 

These, with other interesting novelties, are the proper subjects for 
RuBETA and Petronius. Why the devil will they meddle with any 
thing more serious ? 

783. Where operatic dicta make pretence, — ] See the English couplet 
cited in the next annotation. * * 

785. And second-rates, turn'd prima-donnas, strain, — ] 
" Miratur vocera angustam, qua deterius nee 
Ille sonat quo mordetur gallina marito." * 

" Fantx the feather to his ear conveys ; 
Then his nice taste directs our operas." f 
787-790. Murders, etc.] The chief business of this, with other 
newspapers. Like the owl in the Lutrin, 

" Des desastres fameux ce messager fidelle 
Sait toujours des malheurs la premiere nouvelle,"| 
791. CCoNNEL, Webster, — ] An association of names that is meant 
merely to state a fact, not to indicate a sentiment. The Author has 
no idea of mating the agitator of Ireland with the consistent friend of 
rational liberty and the steady conservator of his country's constitu- 
tion, a very ordinary demagogue with the first political name, be- 

* Juv. iii. 90. t Dunciad, ii. 203. ± Chant. 3"^'. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 303 



Great Arbiter of Elegance ! I mean, 

The elegance of taste and plajhouse-scene ; 



yond all comparison, in the union. — The text, to a liberal man, 
will show as much : but this poem must pass under the fingers of 
others. 

791. — a little song, ] 

" La tons les vers sont bons pourvu qu'ils soient nouveaux." * 
But, as a common instance of Petronius's really good taste in such 
matters, we insert the following rhymes and preface from his paper, 
being scraps which we found in the usual library for such publica- 
tions. The introduction appears to have reference to one of the Amer- 
ican quarterly reviews. 

"Art. VI. gives to the various publications of Mrs. Child, a native writer of approved 
talent, a deserved meed of applause. The following poem, now for the first time seen 
by us, from her pen, is admirable. The subject is the painting by Vanderlyn, of 
Marius seated amid the ruins of Carthage. 

' Pillars are fallen at thy feet, 
Fanes quiver in the air, 
A prostrate city is thy seat, — 
And thou alone art there. 

' No change comes o'er thy noble brow 
Though ruin is around thee ; 
Thine eye-beam burns as proudly now, 
As when the laurel crown'd thee. 
* * 

* And Genius hath electric power, 
Which earth can never tame ; 
Bright suns may scorch, and dark clouds lower, — 
Its flush [flash ?] is still the same. 

• The dreams we loved in early life, 
May melt like mist away j 
High thoughts may seem, mid passion's: strife. 
Like Carthage in decay. 

'And proud hopes in the human heart 
May be to ruin hurled, 
Like mouldering monuments of art 
Heaped on a sleeping world.' ■' Etc. 

What a pity that so good a judge of verses and of English should not 
versify, as he makes English, himself ! Who could tell the result 7 He 

* Boil. Sat. x. * * 



304 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

At whose dread fiat magazinists shake^ t95 

And boarding-schools their month's selection make, 



might surpass Macdonald Clarke* — or even the pellucid Bulwer! 
Mrs. Hemans would be simple and classic to him, and L. E. L. would 
prove a vulgar follower of common sense. Prithee, PETRONitrSj try ! 
Though thy great example in Philadelphia f shall rival thee ; in taste 
thy equal, in assumption thy superior : — 

* Apropos of Macdonald Clarke. While the editor of the American blushed not 
to praise such stuff as the above, he could find the face, we will not say heart, to write 
as follows of this poor fellow, (who is surely' not half so mad as any of these poetasters,) 
not merely mortifying- that pride, of which Petronius cannot have engrossed so 
much, but some portion, doubtless, has fallen to RIacdonald's share, but depriving 
the unfortunate man of his bread. Fie upon such men ! who have charity daily on 
their lips. 

"Poems by Macdonald Clarke. 1 vol. New York: J. W. Bell. — ' Great 
genius is to madness close allied,' and so is genius sometimes thatisnot great, in which 
categonj is to be included that of the ' mad poet/ familiarly so called, whose volume is 
now before us. 

" That any one should take the trouble to collect and publish these inanities, we would 
not, but for the evidence, have easily believed — that amj one will take the trouble to 
read them, we do not believe ! " 

What necessity was there for this wicked notice ? If any one would take the trouble 
to purchase the book, why not let him ? What harm could it do the well-fed Petroni- 
us that the poor and unoffending being, whom he has so gratuitously chosen to insult, 
should eat a small portion of that food, which the God, who made them both, gave 
them, I presume, equal capacity for relishing ? Would it have diminished the heap 
upon his own plaUer ? 

Hie error tamen, et levis hsec insania, quantas 

Virtutes habeat, sic collige : valis avarus 

Non temere est animus ; versus amat, hoc studet unum ; 

Detrimenta, fugas servorum, incendia ridet3 

Non fraudem socio, puerove incogitat ullam 

Pupillo 3 vivit siliquis et pane secundo ; Etc. (a) 
There is a translation somewhere by one Francis, which the American may consiiK. 
But come, let us acknow ledge that an editor has no need of what he is plainly seen to 
want, humane feelings ; let us further allow him the miserable pleasure of pulling the 
wings and legs from harmless flies; we shall see, however, that if he wants a heart, he 
has discrimination (of persons) to a prodigious degree, and that if little flies are muti- 
lated for amusement, the big ones buzz delightfully to his discerning ears. See, in the 
note to V. 934, the poem of Mrs. Fleet's 3 then tell me, did Macdonald Clarke 
ever write more wretched stuff than that ? There is no such fool as dare to say he did. 
t The genius of the N. Y. American is kept in awe by that of the National Gazette, 
or at least was, when Mr. Walsh had the conduct of the latter paper. * * 

(a) HoRAT. Epist. Lib. ii. 1. v. 118, «fec. 



CANTO FOURTH. 306 



When lists go down to Long and Peabody, — 
Please send Guy Rivers, or The Yemassee ; 



" [F?wn the National Gazette.'] * 

"The Pennsylvania, 

" The largest vessel in the world, now lying at the Navy Yard, Philadelphia.- 

'' Thou shalt go forth an Ocean King, 
An Eagle with distended wing, 

The Monarch of a wat'ry realm. 
Dominion seated on thy helm. 

Tliy kindred fellows, there shall be, 

The monsters of the surging sea. 

Leviathans shall check their course 

To marvel at a mightier force. 

The dolphin and enamelled snake, 

Shall by thy side their pastime take, 

While mermaids from their amber plains, 

Will lure thee on, with choral strains. 
# * * 

That iron bulwark seems to mock 

The yesty billows' angriest shock 5 

Undaunted, midst the swirling flood. 

As sporting in its raging mood. 

But what is this, thy mimic might. 

To Him, th' overwhelming, Infinite ; 

Who that far desert-realm has spanned, 

And ' poured it from his hollow hand 1 ' 

A stroke from whose broad arm would sweep 

Thy fabric 'neath the yawning deep 3 

Nor leave one plank to mark the wave. 
That lashed o'er thy gigantic grave. 
Trenton, 1835. H. L. B." 

Let thine own correspondents, Petronius, but imitate this sublime pro- 
fanity, and ask the engine on the Erie railroad the sensible question, 
what its might is to the Deity, and thy columns will be perfect. J\Iacte, 
puer adulte ! Made nova virtute. 

793. —Arbiter of elegance!—] Petronius's true title: "arbiter 
elegantiarum." * * 

794. The elegance of taste— ] See note to v. 808, below. ** 

795. — magazinists — ] Sc. the editors of the Amer. Monthly Mag., 
of the Knickerbocker do., of the Southern Lit. Messenger, et id genus 
omne. * * 

* N. Y. American, of Oct. 29th, 1835. 

39 



306 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

A Winter in the West ; all those, indeed, 
Petronius declares my girls may read : 800 



Ver. 796. And boarding-schools their month^s selection make,] 
Te sine, nil stultis pulchrum: omnes ora puelliB 
In te, oculosque ferunt vers^B : tua maxima virtus 
Omnibus auxilio est : tua libant carmina * passim 
Assiduce, primis et te venerantur ab annis. f 
There you are, sir, on the same bench with Virgil. 

797. LoNO and Peabodt, — ] Fashionable booksellers in New York, 
at the time these lines were written. 

799. — all those, indeed — Petronius declares my girls may read : ] As 
the Man of Feeling, the Man of the JVorld, Julia de Rouhigne, Rod- 
erick Random, Amelia, Falkland, Pelham, and the like. Example : 

"The Miscellaneous Works of Henry Mackensie, complete in one vol- 
ume. N. Y. : Harper 4* Brothers. — The Man of Feeling, the Man of the World, 
Julia de Roubigne, and various papers published in the periodicals of the day, are here 
collected in one handsome volume. The inundation of modern books has probably 
caused young readers to be ignorant, that Mackensie is one of the purest writers and 
most touching narrators in our language, and it may therefore be doing a service to such 
readers, thus to bear our testimony [ ! ! ] to his merits." [And, accordingly, the Har- 
pers advertised Mackensie as a holiday present.] 

Now, to pass the mere merit of Mackensie as a writer, — of 
which, by the by, there is, notwithstanding Sir Walter Scott, | 



* Sc. those which he publishes. 

t ViD^ Poet. iii. 570, with a very trifling alteration. ** 

X Sir Walter entitled him the Scottish Addison. (See the last page of Waverley.) 
But, in the same novel, Crabbe is termed the English Juvenal. Crabbe, it is true, 
though not exactly either Nature's sternest painter, or the best, (a) held a fine pencil for 
some of the gloomier traits of humanity. In his manner of description he not un- 
frequently resembles Dryden, whom, I should judge by his often-recurring Alexan- 
drines, he justly admired and chose to study, and in his versification he attains, at dis- 
tant intervals, to the richness and variety of Pope ; but, like Dryden, the author of the 



(a) The encomium of Byron ; only faulty, because superlative : — 

'T is true, that all who rhyme, nay, all who write, 

Shrink from that fatal word to genius — Trite ; 

Yet Truth sometimes will lend her noblest fires, 

And decorate the verse herself inspires : 

This fact in Virtue's name let Crabbe attest. 

Though, Nature^s sternest painter., yet the best. 
Eng, Bards, SfC. 
Had the poet said, Nature's stern painter, and among her best, he had told the simple 
truth. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 307 

For these are shocking times, dear Mr. Long, 
And naughty books make every thing go wrong. 

(who, it must be remembered, was a personal friend of Mackensie's, 
and was besides, as Mr. Lockhart testifies, very apt to overrate the 

Borough seems to have thought that his good verses would atone for the bad (h), while 
he is Certainly remarkable tor not a little of that platitude which is the besetting sin of 
William Wordsworth : and where shall we find in him the magnificence, the en- 
ergy, the sparkling vivacity, the pointed irony, the bitter invective, and, above all, the 
conciseness of expression, that condensation of much matter into a small compass, and 
that felicity of epithet by which, at a single stroke of the pencil as it were, entire pic- 
tures stand in the distinctness of reality, and the glow of living nature, on the eternal 
canvass, — where, I say, shall these, the finished traits of Juvenal, be found upon 
the homely pages of George Crabbe ? (c) And as to Mackensie, certainly in that 
book by whose false title he is as often known as by his own honest name, " The Man 
of Feeling " appears to have made the author of the Sentimental Journey his vicious 
model rather too much to be paralleled with JosEPfl Addison 3 while the moral sen- 
tences, which alone give relish to the Man of the World, had their model more in the 
Rasselas of Dr. Johnson, than in the sheets of the Spectator. 

It is thus that men inconsiderately assign to noted characters, whether in letters or 
politics, titles which suppose the existence of qualities perhaps totally averse from their 
nature. A single fancied trait (as, for instance, the severity of the subjects, rather 
than of the muse, of Crabbe,) is sufficient to make the rest of the character pass cur- 
rent for the parallel we are pleased to form of it 5 and, as in morals the fine turn of a 
period, or a sparkling sentence, is often regarded more than exactness and truth, so 

(&) The acute remark of Dr. Johnson upon Dryden's irregular muse. -The observation 
above applies ofcourseonlv to Cr ABBE'S later productions (the Borough and the Tales); 
the ViUa'-e will range on the same shelf with Goldsmith's Deserted Village and Mr. 
Campbell's Pleasures of Hope. It is truly, what Johnson declared it to be, " varied, ele- 
gant, and original ; " nor will you easily find a collection of poems more elegant throughout 
than the volume where it occurs. 

(c) There is no real parallel in English, and none whatever in French satire, for Juvenal. 
BoiLEAu borrowed from him, to be unlike him, and Dryden but resembles him in parts. 
Certainly neither Gifford, nor, still better, Byron, strong as is the former, and strong, va- 
ried, elegant, and lively the latter, can lay any claim to such a distinction, though it has 
been generously heaped upon them both. (1) Pope, who comes the nearest m resemblance 
to a classic author of all the poets of Great Britain, especially in that evidence of a true 
artist, the felicitv and force of expression, and the skill to select the proper points for de- 
scription, and not (like Crabbe) to carry us through the entire country of detail, Pope 
combines with much of the grace and pleasantry of Horace no small portion of the keen- 
ness and vigor of Juvenal, while he excels them both in the harmony of his muse, and 
in the melody of distinct verses 5 yet Pope is not a Juvenal any more than Dryden. 

(1) And yet am I not certain that English Bards and Scotch Revieivers does not deserve 
to be laid side by side with Juvenal, however it has no such similitude of features as enti- 
tles it to be called a likeness. Amazing performance for so young a man ! whether we 
regard the brilliancy of its satire, or the excellent judgment displayed in its criticism. 



308 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

The last you sent I really must return ; 
It talks too like a man for my concern. 



merits of other writers,) a very erroneous opinion current, — though 
we cannot blame Petronius, who has never an opinion of his own, 
for sailing with the stream, like other straws, whisps, orange-peel, 
and suchlike things, — passing this, what are we to think of his ad- 
vice as a moral teacher, who recommends Julia de Rouhign^, and the 
Man of the World, ay, or the Man of Feeling, to young readers ? books 
which, even excluding all their scenes of common vice and uncommon 
debauchery, are dangerous on the score of false sentiment. It is 
shooting a fly with a cannon, we confess, to blow up by argument or 
evidence what were done as well with a puflf of laughter ; only we 
recollect that there were such people as believed in Matthias ; and 
therefore we add what Petrokius said of Roderick Random. 

"Roderick Random, 1 vol., by T. W. Smollett. N. Y. : Harper ^' Brothers. -^ 
In {his fastidious age, the genuine humor of Smollett, and his life-like delineations of 
characters — not always refined — as what society on earth consists exclusively or mairir 
ly of such 1 — run some risk of not being enjoyed, as they should be. 

"Our recollections, however, oi Roderick Random and honest Strap, are so agree- 
able, that we cannot, in gratitude, do less than say to others, that Roderick Random is 
capitally amusing." N. Y. Amer. Nov. 26ih, 1836. 

This is the man who condemned Frascati (see the next note). Could 
Frascati display more immoral scenes, or more likely to corrupt.^ We 
believe it is Roderick Random who plays Dr. Home Avith himself and 
a drab in a garret. The best of it is, that the same very knowing critic 
found fault with Humphrey Clinker for indelicacy ! But see the note 
which follows. 

801-804. ^'^ For these are shocking times, — Jlnd naughty books,^^ etc.] 
Thus speaks Petronius, in the spring of 1835 we think, (we have lost 
the date : ) 

" Frascati, or Scenes in Paris. 2 vols. Philad. : E. L. Carey, and A. Hart. 
This seems to us a rechauffe [rechauffe'\ of the various immoralities of the great 
metropolis — fit only to be perused by those whose tastes would lead them to par- 
take in what is here [sc. in the !N. Y. American ] described." 



here a fine-sounding phrase fills the ear too agreeably for the understanding to analyze 
the composition of the music. How much this exaggeration, in the case of Sir Wal- 
ter Scott, was owing to that feature in his character recorded by Mr. Lockhart, 
and how much to the wish of securing the favor of two very popular writers for an un- 
known production, I leave the reader to imagine. That great and excellent man, the 
greatest perhaps of the present age, and surely one of the best, had enough of amiability 
for the former motive, and was sufficiently human for the latter. 



CANTO FOURTH. 309 

Ah, dear Petronius, — Yet no, — not dear ; 805 
For I thy literary Thorax fear, 



Delicias hominis ! Let the Reader compare this pithy condemnation 
with the approved in the preceding note. — By the by, it had so hap- 
pened that Mr. Power, the comedian, had published, the very week be- 
fore, his vindication of his right to be called an Irishman, which Petro- 
nius republished; and there this word rechauffe occurred properly 
applied ; unfortunately for our critic, who must needs introduce it here, 
though how it were possible to make a rechavffi of the " immoralities," 
whatsoever one might do with a former description of the " immorali- 
ties," it would be hard to say. 

Again, (to take our illustrations from the present day,) thus says the 
N. Y. American of March 10th, 1838 : 

" The Works of Lady Blessington. Complete. 2 volumes in one. Philadel- 
phia : E. L. Carey, and A. Hart. — A new edition of the several works of this au- 
thoress, which, though published separately, are now for the first time presented to 
the public in one book. The letter-press and material [ ? ] <^^ this work is [are] 
good, and it contains a very pretty engraving of a very fine woman. We wish we 
could commend the purity of its morals, as well as the whiteness of the paper ; but 
depravity is sometimes found within a broad margin. We do not question Lady 
Blessington's right to describe things as she [so printed] finds them 5 but may 
Heaven preserve us in our unsophisticated ignorance of such ways and doings." 

As if to bid Shame defiance, the very next column, on the same page, 
presents, side by side with this conscientious judgment, the following 
charming contrast : 

'* The History of Amelia. By Henry Fielding, Esq. with illustrations by 
George Cruikshank. New York : Harper and Brothers. — Here is a comfort to a 
regular novel reader, one who has undertaken Clarissa Harlow and accomplished 
Sir Charles Grandison, who has gone into the countnj for a week with the History of 
Joseph Andrews and Pamela, and returned in three days for %v ant of something to 
read. Here are five hundred and twenty-four closely printed pages, in a volume of 
Doct. Johnson's favorite size — one you can take in tjour hand to the fireside. The 
illustrations are very amusing, and give the costumes of the day with accuracy. We 
cannot exactly call this a new book, it having been written about eighty-eight years 
ago." 

This is negative commendation and recommendation, and of a high 
degree. Did Petronius read Amelia " eighty-eight years ago," that 
he forgot the scenes it describes, and the nature of its dialogue .? or, as 
with his fellow-moralist Rdbeta, is there such a difference between a 
reputation which is in the reach of envy, and one that is established too 
long and set too high for curs to snarl at ? that is, between a living au- 
thor and a dead ? " We do not questioii Henry Fielding's right to de- 



310 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

And, crouching in the dust, salute thee Great, 
Whose type-stick measures out both taste and fate, — 



scribe things as he found them ; but may Heaven preserve us in our 
unsophisticated ignorance of such ways and doings." Amen! 

The Reader will open his eyes, presently, at the display we shall 
make of this very nice newsman's real purity. 

806. — Thorax — ] Thorax was the name of a mountain near the 
city of Magnesia, whereon Daphitas was crucified for paying his 
metrical compliments to certain Kings. Kurai V h TiVtu, -r^os o^u 

xaXovft'svu Qupaxi, ri ToXis l^M.Kyvyicria,'], i(p' Z iTTa.v^u6rivoci (paffi AeKptrav rov 
ypafjcfixriKOv, Xot^o^rnravra, revs fiainkia; ^la trri^ou ' 

TLo^(pu^iot fiuXuTts, ctTefptvrifJLOcrec ya,Z,*i; 
Avfftfiu^ou, Avhm a^;^£T» xa.) ^^vyins- 
Ka) Xoytev V IxTifftTv avru xiyirai, (pvXoirric6tt,i rov Qu^axa. StrAB. Geogr. 

xiv. Cap. i. Sect. 39. Lips. I80ri. 

808. — taste — ] Though this, as is evident from the construction, 
refers to his dicta as a reviewer (God save us!), and is amply illustrated 
further on in the Canto, we cannot refrain from annexing a specimen of 
what is exactly to Petronius's taste; and we hope it will be thought 
worthy to rank with those '* inspired " strains of Flaccus and John 
Waters, with which our Author has so cunningly adorned his pages:— 
" [From the Green Thistle, No. 2.] 

" Mr. Pickwick — 'As I vas a comin' down street this mornin', a thinkin' of my 
mother-in-law, and the old 'un, and the shepherd, a big loafer vent to shoot a liule hin- 
nocenl dog, right afore my face ! So I goes up to him, ■' JMr. Snook,' says I. ' My 
name ain't Snook,' says he. ' Veil/ said I, ' my name ain't Valker, and if so be, Mr. 
Varmint, that you harms that ere dog, vy,' etc. ' Ven I comes home, I sets down and 
writes this ere little haffecting ditty.' Etc. 

" AN APPEAL TO THE DOG KILER. 

" Loafer, spare that dog- ! 

Touch not a hair or limb ! 
In youth he fought for me. 

And now I '11 fight for him. 
What injury doth he. 

That in his fated head, 
The Mayor's stern decree 

Must lodge a junk of lead. 
* * 

When but an idle boy 

Often with him I roved ; 
In all their gushing joy. 

Him, too, my sisters loved j 



CANTO FOURTH. 311 

Fate of small authors, who adore thy shrine, 
And humbly beg of thee for leave to dine. 8io 

(They, who w^ould scorn a Holland's noble aid. 
May lick thy vulgar hand for praise, and bread ! 
Spirits that would despise e'en Southey's bays. 
But bend the neck to greet a blockhead's praise ; 



And him my brothers dear. 

The fond caress would give. 
Loafer ! who sent thee here ? 
Go ! let that old dog Uve ! " 

N. Y. America?!, Sept. 7th, 1837. 

As this is not the communication of one of his subscribers, but an ex- 
tract, we may reasonably consider it, like the one on p. 305, peculiarly 
to the Editor's taste ; and, certainly, it does it credit. * * 

811. Holland — ] The venerable and amiable nobleman, himself 

a man of letters, who now graces this title, was, it will be remembered, 
somewhat gratuitously rated by Lord Byron for his patronage of au- 
thors. 

I desire not to be misunderstood. While I think that a man of 
rank and fortune cannot more nobly use his wealth and influence 
than in the encouragement, and protection if need be, of literary merit, 
yet do I hold that the object of this patronage is always degraded: 
Dignus Aricinos qui mendicaret ad axes, 
Blandaque devexse jactaret basia rhedse.* 

The client is morally a slave to his patron ; and slavery recognises no 
virtue but entire submissiveness. But as, at the present day, you meet 
in certain writers most indignant flourishes at the mental prostitution of a 
past era in literature, it seems to me not very consistent, that these cham- 
pions of independence should condescend to live at the will of a news- 
paper, and submit their taste and judgment to its beggarly decision. 
Perhaps they cannot help it. Amen ! then I will help it for them. 

113. — e'en Southet's hays, ] The laureateship has long been consid- 
ered, even in England, as somewhat derogatory to that character for 
independence, which a man of spirit wishes to maintain in the Avorld. 
A poet-laureate always seems to be a poet in livery ; though he is so, in 
fact, but on stated occasions. 



* Juv. iv. 117. 



312 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Warm'd by the smiles, and frozen by the sneers, 8i5 
Of stupid, fulsome, menial, gazetteers.) 
All hail, dread King of Shreds and Patches ! deign 
To let my ivy clasp thy wall of brain. 
So shall thy name, like Pyrrhus' toe, unhurt. 
Survive when all the rest of thee is dirt. 820 

Swart Memnon spoke, when Egypt's blood-red 
sun 
Touch'd his cold lips ; and yet they were but stone : 
So thou, inspired by gold's omnific ray. 
Though Heav'n hath cast thy brain in refuse clay, 



Ver. 817. — deign — To let my ivy clasp thy wall of brain: ] 

banc sine tempora circum 

Inter victrices hederam tibi serpere lauros. 

ViRG. Eel. viii. 12. 

819, 820. — like PrBitHus'' toe, unhurt — Survive — ] Quorumdam 
corpori partes nascuntur ad aliqua mirabiles ; sicut Pyrrlio regi pollex 
in dextro pede, cujus tactu lienosis medebatur. Hunc cremari cum 
reliquo corpore non potuisse tradunt, conditumque loculo in templo. 

Plin. Hist. JVat. vii. 2. * * 

821, 822. Swart Memnon spoke, ivhen Eoypt's blood-red sun — Touched 
his cold lips ; and yet they were but stone : ] — quern vocant basalten, 
ferrei coloris atque duritias. ***Non absimilis illi narratur in Thebis 
delubro Serapis, ut putant, Memnonis statua dicatus : * * *. Plin. Hist. 
JVat. xxxvi. 11. — Memnonis saxea effigies, ubi radiis solis icta est^ 
vocalem sonum reddens. Taciti ^nnal. ii. 61. * * 

821. — blood-red sun — ] It was at his rising, as is well known, that 
the Sun is said to have produced this effect on Memnon. Philostratus 
has described the phenomenon very fancifully : AoKilyk^ o 'Hx/«f, e'sm) 

XakovvTt (ro<piirftari, •ra^cifjt.vhTff^ai Ttiv 'U/4,i^av [ i. e. Auroram, Memnonls 
matrem.] Icon. lib. i. 7. ed. Olearii. fol. Lips. 1709. p. 774. 



CANTO FOURTH. 313 

Turn'st the rude hand, that should have grasp'd a 
spade, ^^ 

To libel sense, and spoil a dirty trade. 
Why not ? thy correspondents bid thee scrawl. 
At it, a God's name ! and amuse them all. 
'T is mutual favor ; thou and they are quits : 
Thou lov'st their resin ; they, obliging wits, 830 

To see their nasty drivel set in print. 
Coax thy dull sprite, and fool thee to their bent. 

Ver. 830. — resin ~ ] Incense. ** 

827-832. my not ? thy correspondents, etc. — they, obliging wits,— 
To see their nasty drivel, etc.] Refers to the regular flattery with 
which his correspondents introduce an article in order to insure its in- 
sertion. A modest man would in every case omit such parts, as it 
would be taking no liberty with the composition, but what, from their 
personal nature, it would be his perfect right to do : but there be men 
content to obtain, from the servility of others, distinctions which they 
cannot earn for themselves. We have specimens, of all dates, and of 
every variety. A few shall suffice us. 

In the N. Y. Am. for July 20th, 1837, some nincompoop, who signs 
himself Old Suffolk, thus prefaces, in an address to the editor, certain 
talk about the inelegance of a Report hy the Visitors of the Military 
Jlcademy at West Point : 

'< Knowing your love of correct composition, [!] your classical and grammatical 
taste, [!!] and your apparent aversion to loose writing, [!!!] I am a little surprised 
that you did not scold the Board [I!!!] for permitting their Report to go forth to the 
world in the dress in which it appears." 

Praise misplaced is often the bitterest irony. A proposition which we 
never saw so forcibly exemplified as in the compliments of Old Suffolk. 

The next example is of March 24th, 1838, induced by which, our mod- 
est editor bestowed a column and a half of his paper upon the wire- 
drawn proposition of a most absurd scheme, such as could only originate 
in the brain of a pedant, and retired pedagogue, totally ignorant of the 
ways of men. Petronius says : 

•-' As auxiliary to our plan of giving to Saturday's paper a literary character, we 
call attention to the following communication of ' A School Master/ on a subject 

40 



314 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Hence, like thy Flaccus, thou wilt ne'er believe, 
That even thy friends are laughing in their sleeve. 



which ought to excite the interest and secure the co-operation of every patriot and 
every parent." 

And the " Schoolmaster " opens : 

" Sir — The vey-y livelij interest which you take in the sound education of the rising 
generation in this promising country, your own experience [where obtained ?], and 
the love which (I know) ijou still retain for Classical Literature, encourage me to 
hope for your countenance, S^c." 

Quid apertius ? et tamen illi 
Surgebant cristse ! Nihil est quod credere de se 

Non possit, cum laudatur. * 

Not one of the least amusing of our specimens is that furnished in the 
paper for May 12th, by one " M." who does not scruple to dub his dupe 
the Father of the Fine Arts. Hear him : 

"Mr. Editor — Amid the clashings [clashing] of Politics and Banks, you must 
not forget that the Fine Arts of our city look to the columns of ijour paper with 
somewhat of a filial claim. If they cry out, you are bound to hear them." 

Finally " Civis," alias " John Waters," alias " Black Fish," alias 
perhaps " Flaccus, " (for two such geniuses surely cannot exist at one 
epoch ; Nature would lack matter and strength for the double genera- 
tion,) " Black Fish" is famous for this sort of pour boire or huona mano. 
He says soft things to the great initials, and their owner, in return, ad- 
mits — soft things. See the note to verse 900. 

833. — ifiy Flaccus, — ] The following is a sample of that young 
gentleman's best rhyme and best reason : 

# * # * 
" My page will prove more pleasant than profound, 
I love to tickle, rather than to wound ; 
When fools are sunk in dullness' slumber low, 
A feather wakes as quickly as a blow. 
In satire's shaft, my pen will not assume 
The part of barb, but only that of plume. 
No. I. W." 

Quid dignum tanto feret hie promissor hiatu ? 

Parturiunt montes: nascetur ridiculus mus,f 
whose whiskers will be shown in a subsequent note. However, " We 
are glad to see this marked No. I, and shall await ^' {sELys our friend Pe- 
TRONius, with his usual good English and correct grammar), " with ea- 

* Juv. iv. 69-71. * • + HoR. de Arte Poet. 138, 139. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 315 

But toilest on, despite thy dwarfish strength, 835 

In dissertations sixteen lines in length, 
Whence sense and judgment wander many a mile. 
Like grammar and connexion from thy style. 



gerness that what is so cleverly begun, shall be unfailingly continued. — 
[Ed. N. Y. American.] " That 's you : Pulchre ! bene ! rede ! 

837. Whence sense and judgment wander many a mile,] The following 
precious specimen of wisdom will illustrate the text in a general point 
of view. (In its more confined application, to the " dissertations," criti- 
cal and moral, with which the King of Cant so frequently indulges his 
patrons, the verse is amply exemplified in other notes.) 

" We commend the sentiment, expressed in the annexed extract from Boling- 
broke, to those most violent and industrious of Propagandists — the free thinkers. 

'■^^ If you find no reason to doubt concerning the opinions of your fathers, keep to them, 
they will be sufficient for you. If you find any reason to doubt concerning ihem, seek 
THE TRUTH QUIETLY, but take Care not to disturb the minds of other men. Let us not 
imagine, like some who are called free thinkers, that every man who can think and judge 
for himself as he has a right to do, has, therefore, a right of speaking, any more than 
acting, according to the full freedom of his thoughts. The freedom belongs to him as a 
rational creature. He lies under the restraint as a member of society.^ " N. Y. American, 
June 16th, 1835. 

Would any, but a very dull brain, have failed to see the drift of this 
most commendable sentiment f I have no doubt that the editor of the 
N. Y. American is a sincere believer; yet here we see him setting 
faith at naught, quite coolly ; betrayed into actual infidelity by the inno- 
cence of his dulness, and the foolish vanity of affecting to have read 
Lord Bolingbroke, by quoting a passage which no one will ever suspect 
him of having found in that author himself Why will this man meddle 
with matters which are above the reach of his dwarfish understanding ? 
and why will the credulity of my countrymen, in submitting to preten- 
sions which the least attention on their part would enable them to see 
through as not even second-rate jugglery, force me to correct so poor a 
trifler? I hope, however, that, now wakened from their easy confidence, 
they will no longer take for real magic a childish legerdemain, because 
it is ushered in with the sound of a hurdy-gurdy and a tambourine, 
and the flaming declaration of the tumbler himself, but dare to look 
for themselves, believing this, (were not which a shameful fact, I should 
not now be writing,) that if such a man, so hasty in judgment, so waver- 
ing in opinion, yet constant to his prejudices, so loud in his assertions 
of liberality, yet so gross in his partiality, and withal so incompetent, 
by nature and from want of knowledge, to conduct the task which 



316 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Thy style ! made up of parenthetic clauses, 

(With dashes interposed, to mark the pauses,) 840 

he has ridiculously taken on himself, (a task which requires, always, 
long -experience and constant study, clearness of head and candor of 
heart,) that if such a man, a man so shallow and unfair, be permitted to 
retain the place which, to our disgrace be it said, he has wriggled up 
to unobserved, we may soon bid adieu to wholesome literature, and 
perhaps, along with it, to sou7id morality.* 

838. Like grammar and connexion from thy style.] One example, of 
very many : — 

" We know no more fitting comment on, or striking illustration of, the absurdity 
of looking to the private opinions of playactors, or identifying them in any way 
with the character and reputation of our country, than are presented in the annexed 
statement from the Evening Journal of Tuesday, of a theatrical row in Albany." 
N. Y. Am., Friday, Dec. 16th, 1836. 

The absurdity of criticizing the style, or the grammatical errors of a 
newspaper, is removed, when it is considered that the daily papers, and 
especially the one here particularized, are constantly looked to by the 
mass of the people as judges of literary merit, are referred to by the 
booksellers as such, f and have actually more inlEluence on the public 
taste than his long experience and laborious study have on the ju'dg- 
ment of a genuine critic. The N. Y. American is frequently called 
upon by its correspondents to decide on matters of grammar, and the 
like, as was formerly, (and, for aught I know, may be still,) the Gentle- 

* They are intimately connected. If ignorant men are suffered to become our 
teachers, we may derive as much harm from the innocence of misjudgment as 
from the wilfulness of malice. The author of the Pursuits of Literature says, 
very justly : " Mankind are guided in their actions, not by system, but by single 
impulses ; by detached maxims, by aphorisms, by sentences, which have frequently 
the force of whole volumes." {4th Dial. p. 370 of 9th edition.) So much for 
Bolingbroke ! 

t An example from an English newspaper will be found to give a fair specimen 
of a bookseller's advertisements in our own : 

•'Just published, 8vo, price 4s., 
"COSMO de MEDICI; an Historical Tragedy, By R. H. Horne, author of the 'Ex- 
position of the False Medium,' &c. ' It is the pure old English school of dramatic writing, 
which the modern taste for still-life classicalities can never root out of our literature.' — 
Sunday Times. '" Cosmo de Medici" is the work of a man capable of effecting high tri- 
umphs in dramatic literature.' — Atlas. ' The concluding scenes of the fifth act, for intense 
tragic pathos, have never been surpassed.' — True Sun. London, J. Templeman, 248, 
Regent-street." 

This stuff is well understood, and of course laughed at, by men of sense : but 
men of sense are not the majority of readers, nor do they have a.casting vote in 
the conferring of popularity. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 317 

Pack'd in each other, but no couple mates, 
Like Dutch pill-boxes, or a nest of plates ; 
While, 'mid the pile, some word of Chaucer's shows 
Like Thomas' church, or Osborn's little oes. 

man's Magazine in London, and decides upon them with the dignity of 
a Scaliger pronouncing upon Virgil; for luhatsoever the King did pleas- 
ed all the people. '^ On what basis this authority rests will be very 
plainly seen in the passages we have reluctantly clipped from the col- 
umns of that foolishly arrogant journal ; and an entire ignorance of 
every principle of taste, and of even the common elements of the 
English language, will be found to be a main prop in the support of the 
edifice. We wish that its ridiculous presumption, in matters with which 
it should have nothing to do, and the readiness of the public to submit 
to its dogmatism, had not forced us to this campaign against a mos- 
cheto ! 

839-842. — made up of parenthetic clauses, — [with dashes inter- 
posed — ) etc.] As the reader has seen, or will see, Petronius has an 
astonishing fondness for broken sentences and dashes, which he assem- 
bles in such quantity, that an article of his composition is an abso- 
lute polypus of lines and letters. 

Son [style], toujours flottant entre mille embarras, 
Ni sait ni ce qu'il veut ni ce qu'il ne veut pas. 

BoiLEAu. Sat. viii. * * 

843. While, ^midthe pile, some word of Chaucer's shoivs — ] Our " ar- 
biter elegan." is an ardent admirer, as we have in some degree shown 
already (Canto iii.), of old and obsolete expressions, or such as are adapt- 
ed only to poetry or solemn discourse; for example, albeit, gainsay, 
moot point, mooted, and a whole family of the like. 

S44. Like Thomas^ church, — ] As much misplaced as the musty words 
of Petronius are beside his modern English, even so much are St. 
Thomas's church, and all the other caricatures of Gothic architecture 
which have followed it in Manhattan, when viewed along with the 
neighboring dwellinghouses. Were all these fanciful erections Gothic 
in any other sense, than the one in which they are most entirely deserv- 
ing of the epithet, still they could only appear, where they stand, about as 
appropriate to the locality, as would the dress of a knight of the middle 
ages side by side of the petticoat of a modish lady of Broadway. The 

* " And all the people took notice of it, and it pleased them j as whatsoever the 
king did pleased all the people." 2 Samuel iii. 36. * * 



318 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 



But this is naught, thy judgment, to the charm 845 
Of thy consistency. As blows the storm. 



massive building known as the New York University is a fine, imposing 
structure in itself, and more correctly built, after its model, than any 
other of the kind in the country, but it becomes almost ridiculous, when 
we turn from its fresh-looking buttresses, and castellated eaves, to the 
airy dwellings which surround it Had the same quantity of stone been 
expended according to some modern Italian plan, and the same space of 
ground occupied, the effect would have been precisely the same, as far 
as the dimensions of the building are considered, while the admiration, 
which at present stops here, would not have sunk into a sense of the 
ridiculous, but have been expanded upon the details of proportion, and 
upon the beauty of embellishment, and New York been applauded for 
good taste and splendor, where she is now censurable for extravagance 
and incongruity, 

844. — or Osborn's little oes.'\ See Confessions of a Poet, which is dotted 
all over, where other writers use the capital letter, Avith small-text ex- 
clamations, capped very mysteriously with a queer-looking freemason's 
figure (thus, d), so that they are altogether very like the astronomical 
character of the planet Mars. The little cipher by itself, if the Poet like 
it, may be very well ; but what the devil the circumflex over it is doing 
in English I do not understand, nor do I believe its papa does either. 

Ih. OsBORN — ] We must beg this author's pardon for putting him into 
company where, however censurable as a writer, he certainly does not 
deserve to be thrust : but the awkward and staring appearance, which 
some ponderous antiquated word makes, diurnally, amid the scattered 
members of Petronius's "editorial articles," is too apposite to the 
typographical oddity of the PoeVs oes, for us to resist the temptation of 
placing them in juxtaposition. However, Mr. Osborn,* who does not 
appear to have the best opinion of humanity, knows very well that men 
of sense are not often coupled Avith their kind. Even Sir Walter 
Scott has been seen to ride cheek by jowl with his coachman. 

845, 846. But this is naught, thy judgment, to the charm — Of thy consisten- 
cy.] If there is one trait of character for which Petronids, in his office of 
editor, is better known than another, it is his never knowing his own 
mind ; except in domestic politics, where party-rancor keeps him steady. 

* By the way, it has been publicly asserted, by the friends of this gentleman, that 
he is not the parent of the unhappy offspring thus laid at his door. Very possibly. 
Bring us the right horse, and we will clap the saddle upon him. It is a viler 
death to be smothered in the stale beer of a newspaper than to be pinned fast here 5 
and I hope he will think so. 



CANTO FOURTH. 319 

Thou know'st to trim thy vessel to the gale, 
Or float unharm'd without or mast or sail. 

This infirmity, however, is never betrayed in dubitation ; no man doubts 
less than he ; but in a vacillancy of movement only surpassed by that 
of a cock's tail in a high wind, or of an empty balance before it is brought 
to an equipoise, or of a bubble of soap tossed up in air by the bowl of a 
tobacco-pipe, or of a football kicked in a playground by a party of 
schoolboys. What he says to-day he is sure to contradict to-morrow, 
and what he contradicts to-morrow it is ten to one he will recall the day 
next following. 

" Voil^ Vhomme en effet. II va du blanc au noir ; 
II condamne au matin ses sentimens du soir ; 
Importun a tout autre, a soi-meme incommode, 
II change a tous momens d'esprit comme de mode ; 
II tourne au moindre vent, il tombe au moindre choc, 
Aujourd'hui dans un casque, et domain dans un froc." * 
We have already given some fine specimens of this philosophical uncer- 
tainty (notes to V. 801.) The one we now present is, like them, confined 
to a literary subject. But future notes will show that our wise man does 
not know his mind in any thing (always excepting party-politics.) 

When the Harpers published their flimsy edition of the collected 
works of Mr. Bulwer, the editor of the N. Y. American protested that 
he, good man, saw nothing to condemn in the morality, no more than 
he did to censure in the style, of Mr. Bulwer's compositions, (which, 
it seems, had in both respects found some undazzled critics in America.) 
This, we are confident, was the pith of his remarks, though, owing to 
accident, we cannot quote them to the letter. Well, an American mag- 
azine says something which induces him to change his opinion ; that is, 
the football gets a kick from the opposite side, or the bubble catches a 
counter-current; and in the N. Y. American for March 17th, 1838, we 
have the following modest recantation : — 

" Southern Literary Messenger, for March, 1838. T. W. White : Rich- 
mond, Va. — We welcome another number of this most excellent periodical. It 
contains among much other good matter, an admirable article t on the Influence of 

* BoiLEAU. Sat. viii. * * 

t An idea of the admirable character of this article may be gathered from the 
following simple sentence, which forms part of the passage cited by the judicious 
" arbiter " : — 

" Erect between contending parties, like the pillar of mingled darkness and flame, he 
[Mr. Bulweh] should gild with cheering light the pathway of the friends of peace and 
order, and cast a withering shadow over the advancing footsteps of destroying anar- 
chists." ! ! * * , 



320 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

God help thee ! what a weight of ballast thou 
Must have between thy stern-post and thy prow ! 85o 
O when, reclin'd upon my long settee, 
That sleepy hour between roast-beef and tea. 



Morals on the happiness of man, and the stability of social institutions, and does 
jiLStice, — strict, though severe — to the toHtings of Bulwer. Convinced as we are, 
that at the present time, if ever, it is incumbent upon the Patriot and the Christian 
to oppose all the inroads of licentiousness of opinion as well as practice, upon pub- 
lic morals, we cannot refrain from inserting some extracts." [Euge /] 

By the by, how very sincere is this regard for " public morals," the 
notes to V. 974 (which also still further illustrate the text before us,) 
will clearly show, if those already given at v. 801 have not done it suffi- 
ciently. 

846 - 848. — As blows the storm, — TTiou knoto'st, etc.] The Frogs 
say, that it is the part of a wise man and an old sailor, to keep always 
to the weatherside of the ship, and not stand like a figure-head in one 
place. 

Tat/ra fiiv •r^h avh^oi IffTt vovv i^ovras xa) tp^ivxs, 

ISiItraxvXiy^iTv avTov ah) 
n^oj <rov iv T^aTTovra (jlocWov toT^ov, ti yiy^af/./Aivriv 
^ixov' itrTavBci, kx^ov^' tv tr^rifjca' to ol fttraffT^iipiiv 

n^aj 70 fjcctXiaxurt^oVy 
^i^ioZ -r^os av^^as la-Tt, xa) <puffu Qn^ecfAiyovs.* 

Aristoph. i?an. 534 - 540. 
How much more wisdom then must it display, and practical acquaint- 
ance with navigation, to make use of any wind ! nay, to do without either 
mast or sail ! 

Ai^iov T^cs avh^os io-rif Kit) fvtrn Qyi^aftivou^. 

# # 

851. O when, etc.] Here the Author offends against the rules of 
the epopee, by appearing himself.f But as, in the famous opening of the 
9th book of Paradise Lost, we pardon the irregularity of the poet, for 
the pleasant intercourse it brings us into with the man, so do we rejoice 

* Theramenes was one of the Thirty Tyrants, and so notorious for fickleness 
of disposition, that he was nicknamed Cothurnus : as if, at the present day, we 
should call Petronius a tavern-slipper, — such, namely, as fits either foot, or any 
foot. 

t See what Aristotle says of Homer, in very just commendation. Sect. 42. 
ed. Tyrichitt. 



CANTO FOURTH. 321 

John fetches in the windegg of thy brain, 

What coffee can inspire like thee, dear Vane ! 

I mark thee turn, and turn, and turn again ; 855 

in the license taken by our OAvn serious bard, since we are thereunto in- 
debted for new light, thrown upon the character of the most extraordi- 
nary and accomplished, with one exception, of modern heroes. * * 

853. John — ] Not John Waters^ but my John ; a much more rational 
animal, or I should send him packing- very soon. 

855, &c. / mark thee tuni, and turn, and turn again ; — And smite 
to note, etc. ] 

" We are assured by a competent source, that the charge brought against J 

B. , by the Evening Post, of having been ' bought out ' of the Morris Canal 

Company, and to which we referred as disqualifying that gentleman for a station of 
public trust, has been publicly contradicted in his behalf — that it is unfounded — 
and that a suit is now pending against the Editors of the Post for the charge. 

" Under such circumstances [the " pending suit," which has, by sympathy, a very 
cooling effect on our hot head,] loe do not hesitate to recall our allusion to it, and to 
express our regret that it ivas 7nade." N. Y. Am. April 11th, 1837. 

Now, " the charge" ought not to have been referred to, until it should 
have been proved; but, once alluded to as correct, " the allusion " should 
not have been recalled until the charge were disproved. 

"Render Justice. — It is in compliance with this injunction that we insert 
below, an extract from a letter addressed to us from Washington by a friend of the 

Commissioner of the Land Office, Mr. W , concerning some of whose acts,- a 

letter published in this paper, on 25th Feb., gave information manifestly erroneous. 

" We have not a doubt that the version of the transactions referred to, given in the 
subjoined extract, is accurate and authentic.'^ N. Y. Am. March 8th, 1838. 

Apply to this example the observations we have made on the one pre- 
ceding, with the addition that the new " version," so readily vouched 
for, was " by a friend" of the party inserted. It is a beautiful thing to do 
injustice for the sake of afterward rendering justice ! to damn a man's 
character on hearsay, for the sake of redeeming it on simple contra- 
diction ! 

" The Journal of Commerce says, that on the 28th February it published the 
statement of the seconds, and again a part of it on tne next day. We hasten, 
therefore, to correct our error in saying that paper had not published it." N. Y. Am. 
March 9th, 1838. 

A man should never make a positive assertion, until he is prepared to 
defend and prove it 

'' Bank OF THE United States and its Liabilities. — As an appendix to 
the communication of Truth, a statement we published in Wednesday's paper, set- 
ting forth the supposed liabilities of the Bank of the United States. 

" From the annexed communication in the Boston Atlas, it appears that both 

41 



322 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

And smile to note thee boldly own the sin 
Of yester eve, and a new score begin. 

error and misapprehension are propagated by the statement, which, therefore, as a 
matter of justice, we hasten to rectify." N. Y. Am. April 14th, 1838. 

A slowness to adopt a statement not proved would have saved the 
haste "to rectify" an error — an error too which was not proved (as it 
turned out afterwards.) The error was "in round numbers, an error of 
95 millions of dollars ! " 

" In justice to Capt. , charged with the abduction of Miss , of Erie, we 

must mention that he has published a card, denying in the most unqualified man- 
ner the outrage charged upon him. Etc." N. Y. Am. of Thursday, 17th May (I 
think), 1838. 

After taking away a man's character by an eagerness to propagate 
scandal, it is but poor justice to mention his unqualified denial of the 
charge against him, when this denial may never be seen by those who 
read the story, or, if seen, will be rejected by the major part of them, as 
being less palatable to the appetite for scandal. 

" A reply from G. W. F , U. S. Geologist, to Lt. M , is entitled to spe- 
cial notice from us, since we adopted, we confess, without doubt or dissent, the grave 

imputations cast upon Mr. F in a previous number of this Magazine, [" The 

Naval Magazine ; " which the ed. of the Am. was reviewing.] It is due to truth 
and justice to say that, iti our judgment, Mr. F, conclusively refutes the statements 
of Lt. M , and proves that they were wantonhj made by that officer. The ques- 
tion will be understood, and /«// /M^ice done, by our giving place to the letter 

from the head of the corps of Topographical Engineers, Col. A ." N. Y. 

Am. Jan. 13th, 1838. 

This certainly is a curious way to gain the reputation of candor : viz. 
to do a man the grossest wrong upon the one-sided account of perhaps 
a rival or an enemy, and then, when, after many months, the wind blows 
from another quarter, to veer about, and call the world to remark what a 
fine weathercock it is which is moved by a breath and thus does justice to 
all breezes. But alas ! it appears that after all there was no wrong done 

at all, and that Mr. F was to blame, and not Lt. M ! for, on the 

12th May, 1838,/our months after the previous act of justice, out comes 
the wind again from the original quarter, and the weathercock brings his 
tail into a line with the current. Behold! 

" It is an act o^ justice to subjoin Lt. M 's replication to the article in the 

Naval Magazine copied into this paper, in which Mr. F assailed a previous 

statement of the Lieutenant. 

" We have got ourselves unwittingly into this controversy, but being in, must en- 
deavor to do justice [again ! Quousque, SfC. /] on all sides." 

Unwittingly indeed ; for says the gentleman Avhose name was so in- 
decently and injuriously brought before the public : " To this, [" the 
editorial heading of the article in the American," as above given,] To 



CANTO FOURTH. 323 

As, in a circus, one may see the clown 
Throw, at full speed, his thin disguises down ; 

this I will make no objection, because, from Col. A 's letter which 

followed, the conclusions would, by careless reading,, ["in our judg- 
ment" says the Am., "Mr. F. conclusively refutes, &fc" !] by careless 
reading seem to be borne out by facts." 

We could g-o on, adding example upon example of our cool-headed 
Editor's candor, consistency, and love of right ; but such trial of our 
readers' patience were unnecessary, even for the sake of justice. 



The examples given, by the Author, of our arbiter's consistency, and with it of 
his candor and love of right, are certainly sufficiently numerous to satisfy the most 
exacting justice. But we must be permitted to show the reader what was the 
hero's conduct in the record of a recent and well-known catastrophe. This, with 
a single other case, will bring the history of puerility down to the moment when 
these sheets are passing through the press. 

In commenting upon the loss of the steamer Pulaski, the N. Y. Am. of June 
25th, 1838, thus speaks : 

" In addition to the facts stated in Saturday's paper concerning the construction and the 
racing * of the Pulaski, we learn that her machinery was cheap — that is to say, that it was 
purchased for about ten thousand dollars less than either Allaire, of this city, or the West 
Point Foundry, to both whom application was made,. would undertake to make it for." 

On the 29th of the same month, it says : 
r "In respect to the fact alleged in this paper, of the Pulaski having cheap machinery, the 
Baltimore Morning Chronicle thinks we are misinformed, and adds — * * " 

" In justice to our accuracy, it is proper to say, that our information was derived from a 
Senator of this State, who received his information from the agent of the West Point Foun- 
dry—and the fact as stated by us, so far as regards that Foundry, ttie must, notwithstand- 
ing the denial by the Chronicle, take to be correct. With regard to Mr. Allaire, it has al- 
ready been noticed in this paper that our information was erroneous. * * * 

" If it shall turn out that we are in error, it shall be freely acknowledged.^^ 

And accordingly, if we mistake not, the error was acknowledged ; for "the agent 
of the W. Point Foundry," as we think, declared the information as erroneous as 
that with regard to Mr. Allaire. (This, be it observed, we cannot assert with 

* No man has more strongly condemned the folly and wickedness of a conten- 
tion for speed, between vessels propelled by steam, than Petronius; and virtu- 
ously loud has been the outpouring of his indignation against his brethren of the 
press, for encouraging by their commendations such dangerous rivalry. Yet no 
man has more assiduously noted the various quick passages of steamers, from 
" swift " to " swifter," and to " swiftest yet." Take the most recent example only. 

"The Royal William does not appear to take much pains to deserve the character of a 
swift boat. Bets of two to one were said to have been made in England, that she would 
make the shortest passage ever known." &c. iV. Y. Am. July 23, 1838. 

Were we to copy all the examples of inconsistency furnished by this great pre- 
tender, it is no hyperbole to say that the entire volume of this book would not suf- 
fice to hold them. * * 



324 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Now a crooW^d grandam, then a simpering miss, 86o 
And next a trainband-colonel in full dress : 
Admiring crowds of peanut-eating cits 
Roar at his jokes, and clap the King of wits : 
Ev'n thus, one marks thee shift thy sex and shape ; 
All things by turns, but every turn an ape. 865 

confidence, as we have lost or mislaid the paper referring to it, and depend upon 
our memory.) Moreover, in the paper of June 25th, we have : 

"Much censure is now cast, and deservedly as it seems to us, on the conduct of Capt. 

A , of the steampucket New York, who, in passing the wreck of the Pulaski, on Monday 

last, contented himself with distant reconnoitering, and lowered no boat to see if any sur- 
vived the calamity, and who spent but two hours, by his own showing, in looking about, 
•without running down for the wreck." 

The very next notice, we think, acknowledges that the Editor was wrong, and 
promises to publish the Captain's statement. July 2d, this statement is published, 
and, in his usual cant, Petronius observes: "in our judgment it is not satis-r 
factory." 

Now, can any thing be more puerile and wanton than this rash adoption of 
every conflicting story, as it is advanced by one party or the other, without waiting 
till the same shall have been positively confirmed, or as positively refuted ! 
puerile and wanton, in any man j but in the editor of a public press, whose gossip 
is for thousands, and, in course of post, spreads falsehood or truth, as the case may 
be, from one end of the United States to the other, what shall we say of it! 
But to finish : — Friday, July 27th, 1838, we find in the N. Y. American, this para- 
graph : 

"The case of the re-capture of the schooner Lone, about which so much boasting has 
been made, as a 'cute Yankee trick, turns out to be an affair in no wise creditable to those 

concerned. It seems that Captain B [C — ] was liberated on parole, not to attempt to 

re-take this vessel, which parole he has forfeited." «fcc. 

While we are still in wonder at the ethics which makes such a difference be- 
tween a trick, and an affair in no wise creditable, comes in the paper of Saturday j 
and lo ! our wonder at the editor's morality is swallowed up in our admiration of 
his wariness of judgment, and in our joy at his candor : — 

"Re-capture of the Schr. Lone. — The Courier is right in supposing that we had not 

seen the denial of Capt. C of his having given his parole, or we should not have stated 

the case so strongly as was done in last evening's American. We are willing to believe 
Capt. C- — ,"&c. 

Where is the security of private character, when the rashness of a dunce is 
allowed to disseminate partial statements at the simple cost of subsequent retrac- 
tion, and the inadvertence of a pair of eyes can be received as apology for the 
volatile slander of a heedless tongue ? * * 

865. — hut every turn an ape.] Because, as with the clown, the char- 
acters are but assumed; as we think to prove before we shall have fin- 
ished the portrait. 



CANTO FOURTH. 325 

Live on ! great ruler of a greater press ! 
Print on ! and each day print thyself still less! 
Stale politics thy little brain confuse, 
And tender lispings of some sucking muse ; 

Ver. 86S. Stale, politics thy little brain confuse, ] This worthy scribe is 
famous, in general politics, for asserting to-day what to-morrow will be 
sure to laugh at. Witness, the very next news which may come from 
England, or France, or from the Moon. — It is the same with his au- 
thors; half a dozen of whom he has already made the Aldeboran, when 
the star turns out to be a mere vapor ! More of which, by and by. 

869. — ^^ lispings" — ] Howard Payne, affectedly entitled a col- 
lection of poetical pieces, which he published in London, "Lisping^ of 
the Muse." 

— of some sucking muse ; ] Exemp. grat. : 

" [ For the New York American. ] 

" TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN. 

* * * 

" A Tartar did you say 1 
What is a Tartar ? 
A sharp and acid thing — 
Unlike the mind's soft ray 
Of intellects pure spring. 

But why am I a Tartar ? 

Is it so crude, to speak 

Of female loveliness — of Grace, 

With all the beauties of the mind 

As well as of the Face ? 

* * * 
The little bird that aim'd to spring 
Above the Eagle's flight, 
Took shelter under his broad wing 
And so attain'd its height. 

Thus did my muse — poor unfledg'd thing 
Attempt to soar on high, 
When lo ! — an Eagle flapp'd his wing — 
And told her she must die. 

Now as she's dead — why there's an end 
Of all dispute and bartar — 
Remember Flaccus as your friend, 
But think no more of TARTAR." 

I believe this « Tartar " is the same hand that, under the signa- 



326 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Sheepshead and turtle still thy page prolong, 870 

And Anti-Mercury round off the song ; 

ture ofFlaccus, wrote songs for the N. Y. Am., the which so tickled its 
knowing editor that he equalled them with those of Ajiacreon Moore! 

As I have lost the paper from which I cut the above scrap, I may have 
mistaken the identity of Tartar with Flaccus. If so, I ask pardon of the 
latter gentleman, for laying this trash on his back when he has stuff of 
his own to weigh him down. 

870. Sheepshead and Turtle still thy page prolong,] See note to 
V. 782, back. * * 

871. Jlnd Anti-Mercury round off the song;] See those delightful 
emanations of philanthropy and disinterestedness, the Unfortunate'' s 
Friend, Improved Vegetable Robb, &c. &c., which render so instructive 
the pages of the N. Y. American. If you have not the entire paper 
handy, ask your daughter for one of her schoolbooks, or consult any of 
the fashionable novels in your wife's drawing-room ; you will be sure to 
find these wholesome effusions giving value to the cover they envelope. 
Or, at a push, ask your son, or your seamstress ; they have by heart 
these gentle missions of good will towards men, which offer to the pure 
and delicate-minded, and to the poor and modest, the balmy hope of sin- 
ning with impunity, and of drawing profit without loss. ■ — See note to v. 
973, in advance. 

871. — ] 

Cultor enim es juvenum, purgatas inseris aures 
Fruge Cleanthea. Pers. v. 63. 

In the midst of the advertisements of literary novelties, and directly 
under the shopkeepers' cards to the ladies, we find in the JV. Y. Am., of 
Jany. 1838, a " Medical Notice, very interesting for the citizens of this 
country, particularly for the stranger." Thank Heaven, the editors in 
Boston have not yet welcomed these beastly agents of uncleanness ! 
these quacks, who are but bawds, and make those men scarce better 
that admit their notices. For thee, Petronius, 

" The evil that thou causest to be done, 
That is thy means to live. Do thou but think 
What 't is to cram a maw, or clothe a back, 
From such a filthy [patronage] " — * 

" Do any thing but this thou doest. Empty 
Old receptacles, common sewers, of filth ; 

* Meas.for Measure: A. iii. Sc. 2. 



CANTO FOURTH. 327 

While heaps of jaw-teeth bid thy letters weep, 
And granite columns break thy brain's cat-sleep, 
When, standing mute, thou contemplat'st their size. 
And wonder all mankind have not thine eyes. 875 
Live on and print, bright sage ! Print on, to live ! 
So the year's eagle cits undunn'd shall give, 



* # 



Serve by indenture to the common hangman ; 
Any of these ways are better yet than this." * 

872. While heaps of jaw-teeih, etc. ] " Passing along Pearl street, 
near Wall street, a day or two ago, we saw a large pile of elephants' 
tusks — some indicating age and almost decay — others of fine hard 
ivory. Upon asking the porter (who was superintending the storage of 
them) as to the number, he said there were 400. There, then, before us, 
were the ivory spoils of 200 elephants [ I ! ] — 200 of those animals, by 
the exhibition of one of which through our country, a fortune is made 
[ ! ! ] — and these 200 hunted to death merely for the ivory of their 
tusks ! [Alack, for pity I] The hazards, fatigues, and probably disas- 
ters, of the Indians who had tracked to their death, these noble and 
more [not our Italics] than half-reasoning animals — the burning sun," 
&c. &c. — " all, all seemed unheeded by the thousands, and tens of 
thousands, who passed along, [shame on them! ] and who only saw in 
these huge spoils, one among the innumerable contributions to human 
wants and luxury of the Genius of Commerce." * * * " Passing through 
Greenwich street yesterday, we saw in the centre of the street, a wind- 
lass with a horse turning the bar, and beyond, an enormous mass of 
granite, cased in wood, rolled along by means of the windlass, on ways 
laid on the pavement. This [the pavement] was a solid column of gran- 
ite, measuring," ^c. " It will require several days yet, before it finishes, 
this its first, and probably last city, excursion. Some half dozen men 
y^'iXh their crow bars, and a few blocks of wood — the windlass and the 
horse — moved this enormous pillar along, with perfect precision — and 
without exciting apparently, more than a momentary interest, in the 
hurrying crowds that passed [!!]." JV. Y. Am, May 22, 1835. 
Miratur molem JEneas, — 
Miratur portas, strepitumque, et strata viarum.\ 

877. — the year's eagle — ] To wit, $ 10, lawful cu-rrency of the U. S. ; 

*" Pericles, P. of Tyre. A. iv. Sc. 6. 
t ViRG. jTln. i. 421. * * 



328 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Applauding much thy wit's diurnal stream^ 
And wond'ring at thy fancy's nightly dream, 
And see, in essays matter rarely clogs, 83o 

Thy types upsetting all things, — even dogs. 

How well a hot enthusiasm squares 
With thy large shoulders and thy grizzled hairs ! 
From twelve to twenty, all our thoughts run wild ; 
But thou, a grandpapa, art still a child, 885 

and only this for three hundred and more folio publications ! Too 
cheap ! too cheap ! for such a world of stuff ! * * 

881 — even dogs. ] Petronius is famous for much sympathy for 
these neglected, '■'•more than half-reasoning-,"* animals, and may be 
considered as Hale's opponent in the Dog-days. Like Chaucer's 
Prioress, (the difference of sex is nothing, in the present case,) 
But for to speake of her conscience, 
She was so charitable and so pitous 
She wolde wepe if that she sawe a mous 
Caught in a trappe, if it were deed or bledde. 
Of smale houndes had she that she fedde 
With roste fleshe, mylke, or wastel breed ; 
But sore wepte she if any of hem were deed, 
Or if men smote hem with a yarde smarte, 
And al was conscience and tender harte. 

Prologues to the Cant. Tales, iiii. (Works, 1561.) 
it is one thing, doubtless, to love Tray, Blanche, and Sweetheart, and 
another to be for ever talking of them. Certainly they are much too 
honest creatures to be on every occasion, " little dogs and all," lugged 
into the columns of a newspaper, which are only fit for us of the greater 
order of animals, who are blessed with the divine privilege of setting 
types, or of having them set for us. Unfortunate curs! Save me from 
my friends, and, &c. Could these little cynics read and talk, without 
doubt they would have this very sentiment in their mouths : Only preserve 
them from the panegyrics of the N. Y. American, and they would run 
from Hale's composing-stick. 

882. How ivell, &.C. ] See the notes which follow. * * 

* Vide Petron. De Canibus et Eleph. passim. 



CANTO FOURTH. 829 

Mak'st thy first notion aye thy reason's guide, 

Till some new fancy thrusts the first aside ; 

In love, and hatred, violent yet weak, 

And prompted by the Devil knows what strange freak. 

'T is well! for, by the Heaven that made thee dull! 890 

But for thy boyish heart, and girlish skull. 

Thy wretched ignorance had sav'd thee here, 

Left for thy readers' daily quip and jeer ! 

Whereas, thou now art hitch'd in rhyme so high. 

None but Rubeta 's nearer to the sky. 895 

Yes, persevere ! be boy and woman still ; 

Urge thy soft friends up some mock Muses' Hill i 

Ver. 888. In love, and hatred, violent yet weak,] A letter to Petronius, 
from one of his friends, and which Avas published in his paper some day 
in the last week of December, 1837, says : " JVhile you continue to he, on 
the one hand, a ivarm approver, and on the other ' a good hater,' lam 
sure of my friend. When you descend to cold caution and civility, I shall 
he equally sure 1 have lost him.'' This is a pretty character for an um- 
pire ! for a dispassionate judge ! 

We have cited the passage merely to show what his own friends think 
of the newsman : our own opinion is formed from his paper solely, and 
the proofs we shall adduce therefrom will very speedily show the reader 
on what grounds we have based the assertions made in the text. 

897. Urge thy soft friends up some mock Muses' Hill : ] The « warm 
approver" we are now about to regard in his most distinguished charac- 
ter, as a patron of letters, the Msecenas of Manhattan ! 
" Behold a monarch-martyr (round beset 
With loyall subjects) Charles, the good, the great, 
The grandeure of whose actions will strike dumbe 
The present, and amuse the age to come." 

Epigraph to the Frontispiece of Lloyd's Memoirs of 
the Lives, Actions, Sfc. of those nolle, rev'd, and excellent 
persons that suffered Sfc. for the Protestant Religion. 
Lond. 1668. * * 

42 



330 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Let Civis copy Shakspeare's dullest clown, 
And vent, through thee, his drivel on the town ; 
Gut fishes, while poetic cookmaids sigh 900 

Ver. 898, 899. Let Civis, etc. ] Civis is a writer in the N. Y. American, 
\rho, with modest fear that its editor may imagine that he bestows all his 
spare iediousness on him^ presents the latter with what he calls " the 
result " of " Shakspeare's beautiful burthen taking possession of him, 
upon his anniversary " ; for, as he feelingly remarks, '• he has no voice 
to sing with, and when the chimes of some of the old masters vibrate on 
his nerves, he is fain to write." And the editor, with his usual courtesy 
for such compositions, replies, that "While Cm5thuswrit.es, 'histedi- 
ousness' will be always thrice welcome." [Jan. 13th, 1837.) 
We give, to the honor of Shakspeare, the two first stanzas: — 
" Eighteen full years have traced their varied round, 
With a heigh, and a ho, and often a heigh-ho ! — 
Since myself, one morning bright, a married man I found, 
In the winter time — the deep winter time, — 
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino. 

" Eighteen full years our brows with chaplets bind, 
With a heigh, and a ho, and often a heigh-ho ! — 
And snows upon brown locks this evening I might find, 
For 'tis the winter time — the deep winter time, — 
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino." 
898. — Shazspeabe^s dullest clown, ] A mistake. It is the modest 
song of the Fage in As you like it, whose burden Civis finds so beauti- 
ful, and whose chimes had such effects on his cerebellum. 
" It was a lover and his lass. 

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, 
That o'er the green corn-field did pass. 

In the spring-time, the only pretty rank time 
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding. 
Sweet lovers love the spring. 

" Between the acres of the rye. 

With a hey, etc:' Act V. Sc. 3. * * 

900, 901. Gut Jishes, while poetic cookmaids sigh — Soft tragedy, to 
soothe them while they fry :] — 

" [ For the New York American. ] 
" To the Editor — The following stanzas were written to accompany a short series 
of essays on the character and appropriate Cookery of the Black Fish, or Tautog j 
two numbers of which were some months ago published in the American. As 



CANTO FOURTH. 331 

Soft tragedy, to soothe them while they fry : 



Mary's moral reflections, however, may appear even now not altogether ill-timed, 
they are submitted to your consideration by your old correspondent, Civis. 

'^ SONG 
of Mary the Cook-maid, to the Black Fish, tohile simmering in Chateau Margaux. 
" Full fathom five thy father floats, 
With all his school around; 
O'er the blue wave, the fisher boats 
Reach now an anchorage ground : 
See, see ! — 'tis cast ! 
The boats are fast, — 
The anchors ground 5 the school is found 
At last! at last ! 
The school is found at last ! 
# # * 

" But mourn not thou that swim'st in wine, 
For those who breast the wave ; 
One common fate marks ours and thine. 
The groundling or the brave. 
See, see ! 'tis fate ! 
Some glittering bait, — 
The camp, the state, gold, love, fame, hate, 
Teach all too late. 
They can't resist a bait ! 

A bait ! a bait ! 
We can't resist a bait !" 

"We can't resist a bait !" A moral maxim in the truth of which we 
fully agree. Example : — 

" We cannot resist the temptation of adding here — though we know not whether 
it was meant for the public eye — the playful and clever envoi which accompanied 
these verses. If the ' simmering black fish ' be only as safe from injury by fire, as 
the poetry of ' Civis, or John Waters,' many a savory morsel is in store for our 
readers, and for ' Mary, the cook-maid's ' grateful epicures." Ed. N. Y. Am. 

And accordingly, the Kingfish swallowed the mouthful of raw shrimp, 
which this elegant and melodious citizen held down to him, in the shape 
of the compliments which follow, and was hooked up as quickly as the 
merest gudgeon. It is the " clever envoi " of which we speak ; and 
we give it entire : — 

" Burn ever freely, what 
I write that likes thee not 3 — 
Whether from lapse of lime 
Like this now sent ; false rhyme ; 
Sterility of thought ; 
Tropes labor'd or far sought ; 
Abortive metaphors 
Such as thy taste abhors ; 



33^ THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Let modest Ward go borrow Flaccus' name, 



Lack of propriety, — 
Or any other reason why, 
But, in return, dread King ! 
One boon I crave, one thing, — 
As thou'st a gun and hop'st to cock it, 
Preserve me from thy breeches' pocket ! 
Me tinder make, me — tory, 
The other thought is pur-ga-tory. 
All's said in saying this. 
Slave of thy lamp, John Waters, or 
N. Y. Am. Sept. 22, 1837. Civis.'' 

So then Civis is the same as John Waters ! that John, whose voice is 
the storm of ocean, and whose sig-h the sigh of sunset sea, for whose muU 
tiplying eye ten thousand waves have each its dozen pictures, which, as 
they hurry hy, they hold up to his critical inspection ; for well they 
know his taste : — 

*' Well art thou named John Waters, for the gush 
Of mossy fountains tells sweet tales to thee — 
And kindred voices greet thee in the rush 

Of Ocean's storms, and sigh of sunset sea. 
Each glassy wave hath pictures for thine eye, 
(They know your taste, John) as it hurries by." 
So says, in the N. Y. Amer. of Sept. 30th, 1837, the Philadelphian 
friend of John, with whom John so amusingly exchanges compliments, as 
we have elsewhere seen, while their happy posture-master applauds them 
both as they nod to each other, and leaves it much in doubt which is 
the greatest quiz of the three. By the by, we wonder, while he was 
about it, the precise Petronius did not tell his children that ^rion is 
no more%/2'non'than Orion is Orion. 

"Thou knowest the language of each finny tribe, 
From savory tautog to the oily whale 3 
And with thy wheedling verse thou ev'n canst bribe 

(Wiser than Arion of the ancient tale) 
To yield them at thy hook to thy desire, 
And fry most musically o'er the fire." 
Having no doubt that the reader shares our admiration of the candid 
and critical Petronius, and of his poetical friend John, we shall make 
no apology for giving further specimens of the latter's poetry, equally 
creditable to the good taste and good sense of both. The first in date, 
after " Mary, the cookmaid," is the glorious emanation which dazzled 
all Manhattan on the evening of Oct. 10th, 1837. We only regret that 
our limits will not suffer us to give it, like the " playful and clever envoi," 
entire. 



CANTO FOURTH. 333 

And take thy senseless praise for public fame, 



" Two ladies, Mr. Editor, one day, 
Enter'd four hundred thirty-five Broadway j 
'Tis there, as every one has heard, 
Collars are wrought, and capes transferr'd j 
Linen made up ; boys' mils and stockings 
Knit ; frills, kerchiefs, other things 
Cut out, adorn'd, made fit to wear, 
More beautifully than elsewhere. 

* » * 

" I need not here stop in my story ? — 
You've heard of the Depository ? 
Heard, said I, and to thee, my King ? 
(To whom by turns each muse doth sing. 
Though none can Pennsylvania ding;) 
To whom all notices they bring. 
Or to thine office send, pay-ing 
Kind thanks, and outre cela no-thing. 

# # * 

" Ladies transfer and yet retain ! 

Old flowers upon new muslin trace. 

Old Loves on happier objects place. — 

Convinc'd the Sons of our bland race 

Must carry, to the death, one face! 

— I cannot say I quite divine 

The way it's done, but the same vine, 

Or leaf, or bud, or fruit, or flower, 

Such is the sex's magic power, 

That, worn by ihem, made broken-hearted 

Our fathers father, — when imparted, 

Impress'd, imprinted, or transferred — 

Aye, that is after all the word, — 

Transferr'd and worn on fresh muslin. 

Keeps Adam, as of yore, from sin 5 

And, while the sex such fruits can show, 

Will I suppose so keep us ; or, so, so. 
% # # 
'' Dear muse, condense, for C K 's sake, 

Cut short or you'll a column take ! 

I'll put the taper out ! ' Dear Sirs,' 

She cries, ' C K has scissors, — 

As Johnson said of wine, abstain 

I can, but 1 can not refrain.' 
* # # 

" If she" [not the Muse, but the transferring lady] 
'• If she have any happier wish, 

'Tis mine for her. My name, dear sir, is 

Black Fish.'' 



334 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Fancy himself Tom Moore, or God knows who ; 



The next in date is of Oct. 14th, 1837, which the Reviewer of the 
Week thus introduces : — 

" To the glorious contest of verse between B. and John Waters, we desire not a 
termination — no Adieux — but again, and oft again, we hope to hear from them." 
# ^ * 

" And oh ! how passing beautiful 
Seems every image, when 
Fond memory o'er the mind takes rule, — 
— Away, Mosaics then ! — 
Etc. 
" — Away then. Music, shall I say 1 

— ^W^ilh Painting ? — Sculpture ? — Hold ! 
— Oh, must the parting be to-day 
That makes my heart grow cold ? 
Shall I no more within th' Apollo's presence stand ? 
— Or gaze upon thy mountain scene, Rafifaelle grand ! 

" Thy golden haze, oh Italy ! 
Thy blue, thy violet sea ! 
Thy deep etherial canopy 

Of night that day might be ! — 
Days younger sister drest in song to Beauty given — 

# * * 

" Though never yet beat nobler hearts, firmer, or more free, 
A lovelier Heaven than ours hangs o'er lost Italy! 
Au moins, c'est selon moi ; encore adieu, cher B. 

John Waters." 
Let it be observed, that, in the very number of his gallimaufry in 
which he ushers in as " glorious " this execrably wretched nonsense, 
Petronids thus speaks of a regular versifier : — 

" Poems, by Wm. Thompson Bacon. 1 vol. Boston : Weeks, Jordan, ^* Co. — If 
there be truth, as we believe there is, in the universal dictum, that Poetry, to be toler- 
able, must be above mediocrity, — we fear this new volume — elegant though it be in 
its mechanical execution — is not destined to win public favor. 

"There is a lack of genuine inspiration in the pieces we have read, though there is 
much command of language, and occasional beauty of expression." 

If there be " much command of language and occasional beauty of 
expression," we will be bound for it the "inspiration" is not so greatly 
lacking as this King of critics would have it. But at any rate, supposing 
that John Waters talked common sense (which is the most monstrous 
supposition a man with eyes can be guilty of), where is the command of 
language, the beauty of expression, even the smoothness of verse, in this 
beggarly fustian on crutches? One of two things is certain: either Pe- 
TROKius's discrimination is sheer stolidity and ignorance (which we are 



CANTO FOURTH. 335 

Tom Moore, or Milton, all is one to jou. 905 



much inclined to believe), or it is partiality (of which we have no doubt). 
In either case, the man is unfit for the chair he has put himself into, and 
the sooner he leaves it, or yields to another pedagogue his place, the 
better for the breeches and the brains of his disciples. 

Now let us see what he does Avith verses not of John Waters & Co. 
Eleven days after the above, appeared in the N. Y. American an elegiac 
poem, signed F. W. S., which makes decidedly the nearest approach to 
elegance or poetry, that I ever saw in the correspondence of a newspa- 
per. Not one word has Petronius to say for it. Let us suppose, in char- 
ity, that he did not know there was any thing in it ; it is better to be a 
dunce, than partial, envious, and unjust. He, who eulogises as a glo- 
rious contest of verse such an abominable spitting-match between his 
friends, must bear the imputation of dulness or of dishonesty. How- 
ever, we extract a stanza or two of the elegy, to prove what we advance. 
Thus it opens : — 

" At even tide, when Nature's pulse lies still, 

And day's last murmurs, tremulous and remote, 
Die with the sun which sinks behind the liill, 
And ECHO scarce responds unto their note j 

" 'Tis sweet in that lone, melancholy hour 

To bend our silent steps where sleep the dead, 
Where the wild grass is waving — where the flower 
Scatters its fragrance o'er each lowly bed 3 

" To trace upon the monumental stone 

The sacred names we hallow with a tear, 
And, as we stand in silence and alone, 

To say — " all that is left is buried here.'"- 

" And is this all ? all of the burning eye. 

Of breasts that with a host of passions beat, 
This little dust ? — ah 1 grinding thought, to die. 
And have our ashes trod by vulgar feet." 

This is really respectable. Then too : 

" My mother ! at thy sepulchre I kneel, etc. 

* * •?& 

" Green be the turf upon thy lowly bed, 

Sweet bloom the rose Affliction's hand has sown. 
For aye, full often there the tear is shed, 

And Sorrow's form stands pensive and alone. 

"Not Art to gild thy tomb her aid has lent, 
No quaint device the chisel doth impart, 



336 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

These are thy friends, and, loving that thou art, 

Thy living deeds are thy best monument, 
Thy EPITAPH is graven on the heart. 
[K Y. Am. Oct. 2oth, 1837.] F. W. S." 

All this, (and the whole poem, consisting of eighteen stanzas, is, some 
trifling inadvertences excepted, equally chaste, tender, and musical,) all 
this the editor of that paper considered not worth noticing, (and we shall 
find presently that he does the same by another performance of the 
same author.) Would the reader then know what he considers a death- 
less SONG ? We have already given " copious extracts," as the journalists 
say, from the multifarious productions of John Waters: but, as an im- 
portant part of our task is to prove the candor, good judgment, and mod- 
eration ofMons. Triacleui'y his poetical midwife, the following tail-piece 
will not come amiss. 

"' [ For the New York American. ]* 

" thoughts inscribed to ROBERT W. WEIR, 

" On hearing of the intention of that Artist to abandon Landscape Painting. 
" In that rich twilight of entrancing thought 

That doth at times the peaceful soul enshroud; 
When Joy, in russet livery, waits unsought, — 

And Silence, hushing pleasure, doth seem loud : — 

" Where Sculpture stands in calm reality, 

That wants but warmth and breath and hue, to live — 
The harp new strung waileth, all soundlessly, 
For woman's hand, celestial hopes to give : — 
* * # 

" The day doth not depart from Italy — 

Its beam dissolve in the cerulean space — 

And, di'unk with golden particles, earth, sky, 

Air, leaf, play sunshine in the shady place ! 

" Thus, over Rome's Campagna, at thy touch 
Thrills the warm atmosphere of evening light 
That gilds Vespasian's Aquasduct; and such 
The quivering joy that makes yon cypress bright ; 

" That plays around that old monastic pile 

With the pure fervor of a daughter's love, 
Whose light of heart maketh some old man smile, 
And gaze — where love is holier yet — above!" 
Is not all this exquisite ? and then the rich melody of that touching' 
line : — 

" Whose light of heart maketh some old man smile ! " 
But: 

* Dec. 30th, 1837. — This is the only piece of John's (in this note) wherein the 
Italicizing is to be considered our own. 



CANTO FOURTH. 337 

Thou stick'st at nothing where thy friends have part. 



" Dear Friend, forsake not elemental life ! — 
The sky is all thine own ! Even through me, 
Her humblest votary, with feeling- rife 
Nature this message doth dictate to thee. 

" The sky is all thine own — the clouds are thine — 
The air of Heaven, a fluid palpable 
To thee as this thy landscape now call'd mine, 
Aerial is at once, and stable." 
Think of Nature's sending a message through John? and then, admire 
that felicitous rhyme of palpable and stable ! only excelled by the har- 
mony of the entire triplet : 

The air of Heaven, a fluid palpable 
To thee as this thy landscape now called mine, 
Aerial is at once, and stable. 
To what sort of things an « aerial " may belong we know not, but we 
must congratulate Mn Weir on having Heaven for his "stable. " (No 
man can be such a fool as to mistake the words for adjectives.) But, 
let us finish, ere we fly off in rapture : — 

" Breathe color, light suffuse^ and bathe in air — 
Thou dost to elemental life belong — 
Th' unborn shall love thee —Envy speak thee fair — 
And Genius crown thee in some deathless song. 

John Waters." 
" In these lines prophenj, we must say, doth fulfil itself — [Ed. N. Y. Am.]" 

" And GENitJS crowns him in some deathless song^ ! ! ! 
Commentator meet for such a poet ! — The smooth, perspicuous, and 
sensible John Waters; the solemn, exact, and capable Petronius ; 
where again shall we find their like ? Homer and Longinus, Virgil 
and ScALiGER, Milton and Johnson, all their faculties united, were 
but prototypes of the partnership of genius and judgment Avhich illumi- 
nates the pages of the N. Y. American, and edifies its wondering, de- 
lighted, and thrice-fortunate subscribers. — We copy a great deal, it will 
be thoughtj of the music of " John Waters's Springe. " Indeed, we 
prick down passages from every song of his, and shall until this work is 
through the press ; our reward, that at some future day men, grateful 
that we have preserved these rhapsodies, shall rank us with the pro- 
geny of Cleophylus. 

902, 903. Let modest Ward go borrow Flaccus' name, etc. ] We have 

seen, at p. 314, the mountain in labor. Accordingly, one cold winter's 

day, out pops the following little murine foBtus, We give its head, with 

the smellers which the midwife prefixed to it. Anybody who wishes to 

43 



338 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Know this, thy foster-child ; the monthly page 

see the body and tail will doubtless be gratified, without going to the N« 
Y. American of Jan. 21st, 1837, as no doubt, long before this note shall 
see the light, divine Flaccus will have given all his labors to the world, 
induced to the exposure by the generosity of his friend. Long may 
they live, Casaubon and Persius Flaccus ! or, Gesner and Horatius ! 
(which is it?) 

" We cordially welcome Flaccus back again to our columns, and postpone other 
matter to give a place in the Review, to the following fine poem. 
" [ For the N. Y. American. ] 
« MUSINGS — BY FLACCUS IN TOWN. 
" THE MONOMANIA OF MONEY-MAKING, Part 3. 

' Bit with the rage canine of dying rich, 
Guilt's blunder, and the loudest laugh of Hell!' 

[Young.] 

" Now, Muse ! the pleasures of the rich display — 

Sweet must they be, to tempt the price they pay — 

A morn of toil, a noon of watchful strife, 

Deserve rare sunset at the eve of life. 

Who stoops so long, at least should rise at last — 

A path of thorns should blossom ere 'lis past ! 

Unrivalled charms must such in Mammon find, 

For which thy tints, oh Nature ! are resigned. 

Who drops for gold such treasure as a friend. 

By the rash purchase seeks some glorious end. 

Dearly his heart must prize his youngling pence, 

For which he drove his blood-born offspring thence — 
' Oh ! choice must be those sweets, for which the heart 

With the pure joy of succoring want, can part — 

What are those raptures which his soul delight ? 

Come, Muse ! present them to our eager sight !" Etc. 

Sive opus in mores, in luxum, in prandia regum, 

Dicere res grandes nostro dat Musa poetee.* 
But, jesting aside, how dares the editor of the N. Y. American to insult 
the confidence which the feminine and juvenile part of his readers repose 
in his judgment, by palming upon them this peculiarly raw and boyish 
doggerel, and common-place nonsense, as a " fine poem,'' when, silly 
as he is, he knows that, for such a nightcap-performance, the most 
blundering sophomore, even in that shadow of a coUegef of which God 

* Pers. i. 67. * * 

t Columbia College in New York. — Yet Prof. Anthon I know, by his labors, to 
be a good scholar j Dr. Anderson, I am told, is an accomplished mathematician, as 
well as a man of modest and gentle manners ; Dr. Moore, (late Prof, of the Latin and 
Greek languages,) is a man of classical taste, and is said, by those who know him, to 



CANTO FOURTH. 339 

Where Caesars ape the Rollas of the stage, 



keep him long a suitable trustee ! would meet with no approbation? O 
sir, for shame ! 

But let us try Flaccus again: practice makes perfect, and a twelve- 
month in the growth of children brings about great changes. 

"We welcome Flaccus to our pages, after his protracted silence." 

[Ed. of N. Y. Am. March 8th, 1838.] 

" [ For the New York American. ] 
" MUSINGS BY FLACCUS. 
" THE MONOMANIA OF MONEY-MAKING J 

" A Satire. Part IV. 



[Young.] 



" Bit with the rage canine of dying rich, 
Guilt's blunder, and the loudest laugh of hell 

" Last bliss of age, when every bliss decays — 
Thee ! faithful Avarice, shall I blame, or praise ? 
Warm youth rejects thy temperate cup unquaffed, 
Which yields to age such comfort in the draught. 
Come all the ills on mortal hearts that prey — 
Pains, losses, wants, that scare the world away — 
When the frail hosts of hopes and pleasures fly — 
When love is far — this faithful friend is nigh : 
Staunch as the stars — with firmer lustre fired, 
For stars in flight of ages liave expired. 
But once the heart let loving Avarice clasp, 
Its pulse must cease ere he can slack his grasp." 

This is quite enough. We see that though the versification is the 
same, (for what could improve that9) there is a great advance made in 
originality of conception, as, for instance, in the idea of the staunchness 
of the stars, and the firmness of their lustre. But it would be unfair not 
to add one elegant picture. It is of the miser : — 

" with ragged 'kerchief now 

('T is all he has) he wipes his clammy brow." 

be a complete gentleman : but all this does not make a good seminary. The mode of 
instruction at Columbia College is scarcely fit for the little boys it professes to edu- 
cate, and the general remissness (1 speak from good authority) which is shown by 
every member of the faculty (with the single exception of Dr. Anthon), from its vain 
head down, is perfectly abominable. With the energy of Anthon at its head, the 
gentlemanly feeling of Moore and the modesty of Anderson to pervade its board, 
and with men to instruct instead of children, the institution might be a first-rate funda- 
mental school : as it is, its building only graces the city, and once a year it gives a treat 
to budding misses, when .from its pretty green out struts a little regiment of gown» 
four feet by one, the future sciolists and pedants of Manhattan. 



340 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Prelates unfrock'd in Pyrrhic frenzy dance, 9io 



We have shown how John Waters surpassed, in the estimation of Pe- 
TRONius, all his other contributors, and especially one F. W. S. We shall 
now find the same F. W. S. to be nothing in comparison with Flaccus. 
And first, referring the reader back to the graceful elegy which we quo- 
ted on a preceding page, we would observe, what is greatly to Petro^ 
nius's credit, that the Reviewer of the Week is remarkably consistent in 
these particulars, and, lest we should think he had forgotten his discrimi- 
nation, five days after the elegy out comes a swinging piece by Flaccus^ a 
roaring lament of the unfortunate steamer Home, whose loss was ra^ 
ther too calamitous to be made the subject of such shocking psalmody. 
However, what says the just Petronius ? He, who found nothing worth 
noticing in that so tasteful elegy, thus ushers in the crutched muse of 
Flaccus, which surely should not need an introduction. " We welcome 
Flaccus again, after his too-long silence. He sings a most touching 
dirge in the annexed lines." And the poem enters. "Silence ye wolves!" 

" [ For the New York American. ] 

« MUSINGS, BY FLACCUS. 
" THE WRECK OF THE " HOME." 

" On Hudson's noble waters ^ 

A sea-bound vessel rides, 
Of graceful mould, and seeming strength, 
To rule, and scorn the tides." 

This is a sufficient specimen. We will merely add one noble distich 
from this " wreck " of matter, and sweet crush of rhyme. 
'•' Her plunging wheels are mired in brine — 
Quench'd is her vital Jiame." 

The first line shows us what is called being in a pickle ; and the 
next! — the vital flame of a steamboat ! — nothing can equal it ! not even 
the concluding line of the next stanza but one, 

" Her back is broke in twain ! " 
Shame, sir! Shame, sir Editor ! Durst I jest upon so melancholy a dis- 
aster, I should say it were bad enough to go to the bottom, without be* 
ing hauled over the coals of a poetical damnation. To borrow the 
" touching " conclusion of the " dirge " itself, 

" Howl ! howl ! ye strangling billows, 
And drown that piteous moan — 
Ye ne'er, in all your murderous course, 
A fouler deed have done I" 

Than Flaccus. 

Thus having shown F. W. S. and Flaccus side by side in elegy, let 
us see them compared in satire. Contrast, with the above satirical pas- 



CANTO FOURTH. 341 

And Joans chop logic with a child of France, 

sages from a poet (God forgive us !) whom Petronius considers as 
"inspired," the following selections (made, like them, from the beginning 
and the middle of the piece to which they belong,) from a versifier who 
is too mean for even a " welcome." 

" [ For the New York American. ] 

" A POETICAL EPISTLE. 

" TO C. F. M. 
'^ 'T is evening now — tiie sun has sunk to rest, 
And left his golden memory in the west 5 
Where from the horizon's edge, far, far on high, 
Flooded with beams of light, the fleecy sky 
Melts from its fiery blaze, and Tyrian hue, 
To Heaven's own clearest, most transparent blue. 
And still the god throws up his parting ray. 
As loth to leave the empire of the day 5 
While close usurping twilight steals apace. 
And the sweet star 0/ Eve resumes its wonted place. 
And now from care, from avocations free, 
My heart unerring still returns to thee. 
Sighs o'er the vanish'd scenes " to mem'ry dear," 
And at this peaceful hour invites thee here. 
Sick of the unhapptj town, xohere grim despair 
Stalks o'er the ruins and infects the air," etc. 

[Ubiplura, S^c. The 2d, 4th, 5th, and 6th verses do not weaken our 
position.) Then, a specimen of vigor : 

•' When past the second mile-stone thou hast gone, 
And left the seventy stenches of the town, 
Look at the mapp'd out fields, too small by half, 
And shake your costive bowels with a laugh — " 
'^e will add, to make the contrast still stronger, some other verses 
from the same poem. 

" There thij good sire, beside his little stall, 

Wax'd the light thread, and plied the nimble awl." 
* # * * 

"^ While perch'd on high the deep-mouth' d auctioneer 
Brandish'd his little hammer in the air, 
And playful jib'd, nor reck'd the master's frown, 
But knock'd the glittering heaps of lupiber down. 
As day-dreams which distemper'd fancies bring, 
As snow-flakes melting on the breath of spring. 
As empty bubbles cast upon the shore, 
All glorious with the light, then seen no more, 
His pride departs, and his ephemeral state, 
And the unmeaning pomp that made him great, 
While silent is that mansion as the dead, 
Nor echoes to the master's stately tread. 



342 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

There Hoffman, Herbert, Bird, their strength 
combine, 

Yon sign-board tells the moral of his tale, 
' This splendid lawn and country seat For Sale.' 
[ N. Y. Amer. Sept. 1, 1837. ] F. W. S." 

The poem, it is true, is very unequal, and contains nothing novel ; 
but it everywhere displays the aim to copy a correct model, and to work 
by proper rules ; and this, with diligence, may do much. Some distinct 
passages are smooth, fluent, forcible, and almost elegant ; and the whole 
is much, very much better than, all put together, the stuff which has 
charmed the editor of the American, and other Aviseacres, for years. 

The reader may think we are making a mountain of a mole-hill. He 
shall judge. If to the couple of paragraphs we shall now copy he will 
but add the fact, that the opinion of the editor of the N. Y. American car- 
ries with it as much weight, for ninety -nine out of a hundred readers in the 
Union, as that of any reviewer, weekly, monthly, or quarterly, he will see 
at once that it required something else than satire to expose the inanity 
of his pretensions, — that, in a word, our object in these protracted notes 
is to appeal to the reader's judgment, without convincing which, no 
ridicule could have any permanent effect. 

" From the Newark Daily Advertiser we extract the following remarks, and just 
praise of our correspondent Flaccus. Such testimony from such a source [ eh ! ] can- 
not fail of being grateful to the hard — as it is to us — who are gratified in ushering 
forth his inspired lays." 

* * * '' ' It is impossible not to be struck with the animation and strength which 
pervade all the inequalities of this favorite writer's compositions, and which keeps 
constantly on the mind the impression of power, spirit, and genuine intrepidity. 
There is no pompous littleness or puling classical affectation — nothing cold, creeping, 
or feeble. We could wish that he would dedicate himself to some lofty theme of 
permanent interest.' " N. Y. Am. Aug. 10th, 1837. 

We must be permitted, as in the case of John Waters, to add a tail- 
piece to all this rhyme and commentary. 

"Capital satire is conveyed in the annexed 'Flaccus/ sportive yet caustic, gentle, 
just, and admirably well timed." [ Petronius Americanus, March 17th, 1837.] 

" [jPor the New York American.] 
"Musings — by Flaccus in Town. 
* •x- # 
" Our rich, whom overgrown estates 
Oppress with care, and trouble — 
How do they ease them of their load ? 
They go and make it double. 

" Our widows, when divorce, or death 
Their galling halter looses, 



CANTO FOURTH. 343 

And little Benjamin new-rules each line. 



No salve like noose from that same cord 
Can find, to soothe their bruises." 
Etc. 

Quid refert, tales versus qua voce legantur ? * 
We are always at a loss wliich most to admire, in the " inspired 
lays " of " this favorite writer," — their sense, their originality, their 
versification, or their good English. 

904, 905. Fancy himself Tom Moore, or God knows who; — Ton 
Moore, or Milton, all is one to you. ] In one of his comments on this 
classic, Petromus bade all the little girls, that read his paper, to take 
particular notice how that Master Flaccus was equal to Tom Moore : 
whereupon all the little girls did take note thereof, and came to the con- 
clusion, that, though Flaccus might surpass John Milton, for aught they 
knew, yet certainly the ingenious Petronius was well worth two whole 
Flaccusses and a half, agreeing therein with what was pronounced upon 
a similar great editor, commenting on another great satirist: "la sauce 
vaut mieux que le poisson." 

906, 907. — loving that thou art, — Thou slickest at nothing where thy 
friends have part.] To use the words of Drtden : " Such is the par- 
tiality of mankind, to set up that interest which they have once es- 
poused, though it be to the prejudice of truth, morality, and common 
justice ; and especially in the productions of the brain." {Discourse on 
Satyr, prefixed to his Juvenal, p. Iv. Lond. 1754.) Never did any man 
come up to Petronius in this admirable constancy : 
A facie jactare manus, laudare paratus, 
Si bene ructavit, si rectum minxit amicus, f 
Lord Byron enumerates, among the virtues of a writer,^aritaZ%, because 
it makes him write in earnest ! X The same is bread-and-butter, — or 
the want of it; and if this virtue have but degrees, how high shall we 
mount Petronius in the scale of literary perfection ? O ! there is no ac- 
cident-maker, from Canada to Texas, that should come up to him. 

905. Know this, thy foster-child; etc.] Had the editor of the N. Y. 
American any decency, he would never constitute himself a judge where 
his personal friends, or acquaintance, are concerned, but remember to ob- 
serve, that " quod probi et modesti judices solent, ut in his cognitionibus 
se excusent, in quibus manifestum est, alteram apud eos partem gratia 

* Juvenal of Homer and Virgil. Sat. xi. 180. * * 
t Juv. iii. 106, 107. * * 

X See the first note to the 12th Canto of the most characteristic of his poems, 
— Don Juan. * * 



344 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

But WO betide him, better never born, 

prsBvalere." * " For, though I speak it to you, I think the King is but a man, 
as I am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me ; the element shows to 
him as it doth to me ; all his senses have but human conditions." f If he 
will play the critic where it is unnecessary, (for, observe, the office is a 
voluntary one with him, or, in vulgar English, none of his business,) 
he must do one of two things, either praise or dispraise. If he choose 
the latter, he is sure to offend — his friends; if the former, in nine cases 
out of ten, which fall under his inspection, he must insult common 
sense and impose upon the public. 

908-911. — the monthly page — Where CcBsars, etc.] To wit, the 
Amej-ican Monthly Magazine; which its patron is so accustomed to eu- 
logize, that, he justly remarks, " it ceases to sound like praise." It keeps 
ever on the same gallop with Petronius, like the horses on the sign of 
a stage-house. — We give some specimens, to illustrate the text. 

" A soothsayer approached. * Csesar,' said he, ' beware the Ides of March !' 
" ' That sepulchral note is familiar to my ear/ exclaimed Caesar 5 ' who art thou 
mysterious visitant, that thus, in a voice as hollow as that of the bittern in the wil- 
derness, a second time crossest the pathway of Julius ? I charge thee answer me.' " 
The Fall of Ccesar. 

" From the paper on Joan of Arc we make this capital extract^*'' [Ed. 
N. Y. American.] :— 

" ' How now, my lieges !' cried the youthful king, standing erect in the centre of 
the hall, ' have ye no warmer welcome for your sovereign than these tumultuous 
clamors — methinks such tones were best reserved till we join fronts with England's 
archery j and then, my lords, will Charles send forth his voice to swell the war-cry 
of his fathers ! — Mont Joy Saint Denis !' 

'' ' But little chance is there, Beau Sire,' interrupted the warrior-bishop, with a 
freedom of speech that would at any time have been deemed to border upon dis- 
courtesy at least, if not on treason — ' But little chance is there. Beau Sire, that 
France's nobles should be summoned to other conflict than that of the midnight 
banquet or the morning chase, by a prince who deems it fitting his own dignity to 
lead his low-born concubines into the very halls of his high Parliament ! — And for 
that matter, little chance is there that they would heed his bidding, even should he, 
in some wild caprice, unfold the oriflamme, and call his vassals to the field of 
honor.' 

" ' Sayest thou, Sir Bishop !' shouted the gallant boy, his brow crimsoning with 
the eloquent blood of indignation — 'Sayest thou — and to me? — Now by the 

* Taciti de Oratorihus Dial. Cap. v. * * 

t Henry V. A. iv. Sc. 1. — Cicero says, {Brtitus, 15,) " Quem vero exstet, et de 
quo sit memoriae proditum, eloquentem fuisse, id ita esse habitum, primus est M. 
Cornelius Cethegus, cujus eloquentiee est auctor, et idoneus quidem mea senten- 
tia, Q. Ennius, — praesertim quum et ipse eum audiverit, et scribal de mortuo ; ex 
quo nulla suspicio est, amicilim causa esse mentitum." * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 345 

Who holds thee, or thy dirty trade, in scorn ! 9i5 



honor of a child of France, thou shalt account to me for this outrage. — Ho ! Du- 
nois — summon our guards, and let yon brawler learn if cope and cowl should buck- 
ler such a cause as he has dared uphold this morning." 

There is a little more of this very natural talk, to which Pizarro is 
nothing ; (and, by the by, in a child of France, we have the closest trans- 
lation we have ever seen of that very difficult phrase, enfant de France.) 
Then, " the gates are flung open at the monarch's cry." " Forward ! 
my guards," cries the child of France ; and the child of France rushes 
forward to collar the bishop. " A hoarse low murmur ran through the 
hall like the shuddering breath that agitates the woodland before the com- 
ing of the tempest ; " and " at this critical moment," when the king " mark- 
ed," or " recked not," the running of this shuddering breath which agitates 
the woodland, " the Maid of Arc " strides up to them like a great fish- 
woman. " Forbear ! " she cried, in a voice so high and musical that, even 
in that moment of excitement and impending violence, it fell on every 
esiYtvith a soothing sound, and arrested every impetuous arm — " Forbear! 
thou child of France — and thou, sir Bishop " — and having,with the soothing 
sound of this high voice, brought the dogs to order, she ejaculates, " I tell 
you that this child of France shall buckle on the sword, &c." Whereupon, 
the nurses and attendants of the child bawl out, " To arms ! " " till bat- 
tlement and turret seemed to rock before the earthquake-clamor." And 
here the " extract " terminates, just as, I suppose, the writer was going 
to tell us, how they were all swallowed up. Pope defines Magazines, 
as " Those monstrous collections in prose and verse, where Dulness as- 
sumes all the various shapes of Folly, to draw in, and cajole the rab- 
ble." * I am afraid this same Pope told very great lies. 

912. There Hoffxan, Herbert, etc.] When the preceding note was 
written, the American Monthly Magazine was under the special man- 
agement of the two first gentlemen. Some time after, it changed again 
its auspices, (this being the second time. Magazines are never steady in 
any thing but frivolity and dulness,) and made up a trio with the assist- 
ance of the author of Calavar. They still contribute to its welfare, we 
believe, though at present the monthly sheet acknowledges Mr. Benja- 
min for its sole editor. We hope it may do better under his protection, 
direction, subjection, election, inspection, reflection, refection. 

lb. — Hoffman — ] At present, editor of the JV. Y. Mirror : a young 
man of very good abilities, which, but for the flattery of his friend of the 
American, might have been devoted to some more useful employment 
than the concoction of nonsense. 

* Dunciad, Bk. i. Note to v. 42. 

44 



346 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

What though the errant knight wore woman's clothes? 

Ver.912. —Hebbert — ] Mr. Herbert is a man of very fair talents (if 
we may judge from the fifty-eight pages, which we were able to wade 
through in very sleepy weather, of his Cromwell), but still more wordy 
than his quondam fellow-magazinist, Dr. Bird. It may be interesting to 
the reader to know, that « his best manner," according to Petronius, 
"is little inferior to that of the masters of historical romance." 

adulandi gens prudentissinia — 

# # * 

longum invalid! coUum cervicibus aequat 

Herculis, Antseum procul a tellure tenentis .* 
"Well, God give them wisdom, that have it ; and those that are fools, 
let them use their talents." f 

J6. Bird — ] The well-known author of several romances. He pos- 
sesses considerable abilities, ' and writes at times with a great deal of 
heavy polish. For the rest, as the reverend Father Benedictine says of 
Confucius, " C'est un bon pr^dicateur ; il est si verbeux qu'on 
n'y peut tenir." X 

913, — Utile BENJAMiif new-rules ^-] Allusion to the phrase of Scrip- 
ture, " Little Benjamin, the ruler, " in the enumeration of the tribes that 
were present at the translation of the ark. Psalm Ixviii. 27. § ** 

76. — Benjamin — ] The American Monthly Magazine for February, 
1838, p. 139, furnishes the following " Sonnet, by Park Benjamin." 

" Sonnet. 

" Oh truant heart ! come back to thine own home — ■. 

Let not the roses lure thee, nor the bloorns 

Of the young spring entice thee more to roam 5 

Be thou not dazzled by those sparkling rooms 

Where Beauty plays the queen, andjiashes gems 

From her dark eyes, and from her red lips pearls ; 
Oh truant heart! frail are the loses' stems, 
They break in showers — and sudden tempest hurls 



* Juv. iii. 86, 88, 89.— For, of course, there is but one master of the historical 
romance, who is the Hercules, Sir Walter Scott ; all the rest are but his imita- 
tors, servum pecus, — the infinitely-multiplied copies of one great original. * * 

t Twelfth Night, A. 1, Sc. v. * * 

X Voltaire. Lett. Chin. iii. ** 

^ In the sacred text, as we read it, the verse is thus : " There is little Benjamin 
with their ruler, the princes of Judah and their council, the princes of Zebulon,aKrf 
the princes of Naphtali." Neither the with, nor the ands occur in the original, as 
may be supposed. The verse is therefore literally : ''There is little Benjamin the 
ruler," &c. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 347 



Down must he go ! This hapless Kemble knows 
Thou too, bold Cooper, may'st attest the same. 
Or own'st thy genius, still, his well-earn'd fame ? 



The spring blooms to the earth, and Beauty pales — 

'T is Life's sweet star, dimmed by the moon of Time ; 
Then come ! come to the fountain, heart, that never fails, 

Fountain of hallowed genius, thoughts sublime, 
That flows through dream land, pure, and bright, and free — 
There is thy home, my heart : the fount is Poesy." 
The modesty of the three last, exquisite lines, is only equalled by their 
truth, to the exactness of which the lines themselves bear such evidence. 
The sonnet is signed, in the Magazine, P. B., — which, I suppose, is the 
cipher for Past hearings 

917. — This hapless JTemblb knows.] Till ihe hook came out, nothing 
was like Miss Frances Kemble, with the N. Y. American, (except 
Fanti, andBoRDOGXi,and half-a-dozen others ;) but, on the discovery of 
the young lady's sentiments for newspaper-editors, the American became 
wonderfully enlightened as to her merits, and did not hesitate even to 
abuse the father to hurt the child. " The charming Fanny," he says, 
May 16th, 1837, 

The " charming Fanny " has got into the hands of a press, more formidable than 
that of the newspapers. The Lithographers have seized upon her, and recorded 
upon enduring stone, some of her own scenes, after her own manner — this too, is 
only No. 1, and a succession of these sketches is threatened ! There are four in this 
number, of which that representing the coming home " of my Dear Father, a little 
elated," — no uncommon occurrence, by ihe way — is n. decidedly good hit." 

This is almost as humane as child-murder ! TantcRne dnimis, &c. ? * 

918. Thouy too, hold Cooper, etc.] For a similar offence with that of 
Mrs. Butler, Mr. Cooper (though wearing any thing but a petticoat) has 

* It is not a petticoat which can disarm the maliciousness of this manly gentle 
man. In his paper of June 24th, 1837, is this (voluntary, observe) facetious para- 
graph :— 

"The * * * by Lady * * *. 2 volumes. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea., fy Hart. — 
Mylady * * * in these volumes, which purport to illustrate the heartlessness of Lon- 
don society of the haut ton, bears her testimony in favor of virtue 5 and as — Hke the can- 
did Scotchman, who, having « tried baith,' recommended honesty as the best policy — her 
ladyship is also supposed to have ' tried baith,' her testimony comes with all the sanction 
of experience." 

Is not this amiable ? Is it not, to use the Editor's darling phrases, manly, and 
high-minded ? Consider that this abuse is of a person who never did him the least 
harm, and I will tell you what it is, precisely. It is just such a display of malice 
as might be made by the envy and malignity of the Devil : nor, as wc have said in 



348 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Surely no common laurel shields thy brow 920 

From such a Jove as thunders at it now ! 



been similarly visited. Nor has the lapse of years wiped out the trans- 
gression of the latter ; for who may say unto the King, What doest thou ? * 
" The MoNiKiNS. — As we learn through several papers that ' the public expecta- 
tion! [precisely so printedf] in relation to Mr. Cooper's new work, will shortly be 
gratified/ we presume there will be a portion of the gratification afforded, by the 
* introduction' thereto, which we find in the National Gazette. This introduction 
has one merit certainly, that of not spoiling the interest, by giving the slightest clue 
to, the nature of the work." N. Y. Am. July 6, 1835. 

How different this invidious notice from the adulation with which Mr. 
Irving is addressed on all occasions, from all quarters, \ from Tom to 
Dick of the newspapers, from the dictator of the American Quarterly 
Review to the young- tribunes of the American Monthly Magazine ! 
Contrast, with the above mean and vindictive notice, the following equally 
mean, but adulatory paragraph from the same paper, of September : — 

"The Beauties of Washington Irving. 1 vol. 18mo. Phil. Carey, Lea, & 
Blanchakd. — What sad havoc does a bookseller's title make, sometimes with the 
modesty of an author. Here, from the stern necessity of complying with the requi- 
sitions of the law of copyright, on the one side — and of acquiescing, on the other, 
in the bookseller's fancy, we have our diffident countryman, actually taking out in his 
©wn name, a copyright for his own ' beauties.' " 



a similar case of Rubeta, would the independent editor have dared to show it 
towards a lady in his own country who was properly protected. 

* " Where the word of a king is, there is power : and who may say unto him, 
What doest thou ?" Eccles. Chap. viii. v. 4, * * 

t Even with respect to Mr. Cooper, Petronius cannot be consistent. Com- 
pare, with the above notice,, the following from the N. Y. American for June 20th, 
1838 :— 

" [Extracts from Mr. Cooper^s new Work.] 

" We indulge a laudable curiosity, by giving some extracts from Mr. Cooper's new 
book, 'Homeward Bound.' Not having as yet read the whole, we are not properly qual- 
ified to express an opinion as to the merits of the work, although we hazard little in say- 
ing, that, being in his ' element,' Mr. Cooper cannot have failed to write an interesting 
work." * * 

X " Such is the power of reputation justly acquired, that its blaze drives away the 
eye from nice examination." Johnson. (Lzye o/Milton.) 

This remark, which were more philosophically correct, had the qualifying ad- 
verb been omitted, applies, unaltered, to Washington Irving. A writer in the 
N. American Review, quoting Johnson's elegant encomium of Goldsmith, applies 
it to Mr. Irving with addition. Did he forget that Goldsmith was no mean hand 
in what Mr. Irving has never tried, and would most probably fail in ? Did he forget, 
besides his poetry, that Goldsmith is the author of two of the best of English 
comedies ? Before venturing to criticize, one should learn to discriminate. 



CANTO FOURTH. 349 

Yet, who dares say Petronius is unjust ? 
Are not his own words worthy of all trust ? 

In the N. Y. American of Sept. 16, 1837, we have a long and unfa- 
vorable review of Mr. Cooper's England; at the close of which occur 
these passages : — 

" Of the American newspaper press, it is no news to say, Mr. C. thinks very 
contemptuously.'' [Hinc illce lacrymce .'] 

" For trade and traders Mr. C. has, and upon all occasions expresses, a degree of 
contempt, that might recommend him to favor even in Devonshire or Burlington 
House. One little, but pretty comprehensive, sentence we quote : 

"'I haveseenabundant proof of a disposition in the trading part of our community abroad 
to combine and conspire to attain their ends, without regard to truth, principles, or jus- 
tice.' Vol. II. p. 257." 

(This was quoted, and the remarks made, in order to set the mer- 
chants of New York, that is, nearly all the city, against their once 
favorite author.) 

" And here we take leave of the American Gleaner, not without regret that truth 
compels us to speak of him as we do, but with the conviction that he lives in an atmos- 
phere of which no censures from the press can at all disturb the serenity." 

(The latter part of the sentence is a sufficient evidence of the sincerity 
of the first.) 

Lastly, to come down to our own day, in his paper of May 9th, 1838, 
this Christian editor takes an opportunity, when telling the story of the 
burning of Capt. Marryatt's books by the rabble at Lewiston, to 
add, that, 

"The village of Cooperstown once witnessed a similar act of revenge for some 
supposed insult by a distinguished literary character." 

And, July 12th, 1838, we have him quoting an anonymous allegation 
against Mr. Cooper, the which charged the latter with a shameful asser- 
tion in regard to Sir Walter Scott ; thus helping to defame the illus- 
trious dead, for the sake of maligning Mr. Cooper, and of bringing him 
into ill odor with his countrymen. 

The first of American novelists may continue to despise the petty 
malice of these miserable wasps, who give but a slight uneasiness, 
while they expose their own bodies to destruction. " People," says the 
admirable Miss Edgeworth, " usually revenge themselves for having 
admired too much, by afterwards despising and depreciating without 
mercy." * « And we read," says Anthony Ascham, " of those who a 
long time ador'd and kist a Goddesse fastened to an Oake in a Grove ; 
but when that Tree was ready to fall, no one would come within the 

* Absentee. * * 



350 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Hark, how he prates of candor ! with such zeal 

As 't were a superfluity to feel. 925 



shadow of her statue."* Imagining that Mr. Cooper's reputation as 
an author is on the decline, (which it certainly is not with the judicious 
few,) these honest journalists seize on the occasion to vent the spleen 
they have been gathering for years, and the same men who formerly 
licked the feet of their idol make up, in their own conceit, for this base 
humiliation, by treating it with every indignity. It is not to be forgot- 
ten, that these very persons were eager to expose to the world what they 
had heard was the falling off in Sir Walter Scott's latter perform- 
ances. So buzzards, from their feeble vision, welcome the setting of the 
sun. 

To return to the N. Y. American, its petty malice was displayed at 
the commencement of its course, when it came out twice a week, small in 
size, but with a busy drone, and buzzed about the ears of the illustrious 
Clinton. We thought it, then, the illadvisedness incidental to the youth 
of those who conducted it, but we have lived to see the same perse- 
vering malignity in the matured horsefly, and Mr. Cooper but takes the 
place of De Witt Clinton. On the 22d of September, 1819, thus 
wrote the American : 

" This great body will no longer be misled by a name, still less by dishonored 
outcasts, and least of all by him, the libeller of their fair and honorable name : the 
profligate politician, who, after having denounced them collectively with all the 
bitterness of persecuting zeal, affected subsequently to become a convert to their 
principles, and was in reality a suitor for their favors ; and who by his contaminating 
union, has indeed in part made good the evil he had spoken of them — by the am- 
bitious, the unprincipled, and aspiring Clinton." 

Seventeen years had passed since then ; Clinton lay in his grave ; 
but the rancor of the American was still living ; and when that intelligent 
and amiable divine, the Rev. Mr. Eastburn, of New York, gave to the 
memory of the departed statesman the honors which were due to it, a 
correspondent of the American's having endeavoured to snatch the laurel 
from the brow which properly wore it, and clap it on another bust, Pe- 
TRONius, glad of the occasion, ^'-cheerfully gives place to the communi- 
cation," (we believe him,) " and renders unto Csesar the things which 
are Caesar's." f However, Mr. Eastburn publicly vindicated the claim 



* Disconrse on Government. Lond. 1648. p. 4. * * 

t The communication was signed Justice, and appeared in the N. Y. Am. of April 
21st, 1837. The editor's appendix was as follows : " We cheerfully give place to the 
above communication, rendering unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's ! " Has 
the reader ever seen Joseph Surface ? 



CANTO FOURTH. 351 

So ladies, crack'd of virtue, cry out Jade^ 
And rail at hussies who are such by trade. 
Candor ? What strumpet can be more sincere ? 
What damm'd-up dike his current rolls more clear ? 

of Clinton, and the impartial man, who sought to clip the monuments 
of the dead, drew in his arm. 

But he who, for party purposes, could take the pains to select from 
another journal, and publish in his own, an infamous story of a duel 
fought by Gen. Jackson, and which certainly, as a deed long since 
committed, common decency, and respect for the honor of his country, 
should not have permitted him to impute to one so recently its chief 
magistrate, — a story which contained this particular, put, for emphasis, 
in italic type, that the ex-president wrote to a friend respecting the ca- 
tastrophe in these words: " 1 left the d — d rascal weltering in his blood ;^^ 
though Petronids, ignorant as he is, knows as well as I do, that no man 
in his senses would have dared to use such language, because there is 
no man, and especially no public man, however wicked, who will affect 
a brutality which he knows must disgust his fellows, and fill them with 
abhorrence for himself, — I say, he who, for party-purposes, would lend 
his aid to spread abroad such an anecdote, and revive the recollection of 
such an occurrence, such a man, it is not to be expected, would hesitate 
to avail himself of every occasion to injure the fair name of an author 
whose greatness he envies, and whose contempt he feels with peculiar 
sensibility because he is conscious that it is deserved. 

921. — as thunders at it now!] The critical Jupiter is still keeping 
the literary atmosphere in commotion. In the N. Y. American of August 
18t.h, 1838, " Homeward Bound " causes an assistant of Petronius's, 
under the signature of R., to make very wry faces. Poor fellow ! he 
cannot help betraying the source of his anguish. Hear him. " Mr. 
Dodge, the travelling editor of the active Inquirer, is an extravagant 
fiction — certainly the original can exist nowhere but in Mr. Cooper's 
brain, teeming as it does with all sorts of horrid visions of American 
editors." I suppose this brain, which teems with visions, gave birth to 
some satirical delineation of a blackguard, or a rogue, or both united, 
and called the dirty compound, journalist. No one, of course, could be 
delivered of such a monster who was not pregnant with " inveterate 
prejudices against his native land." * * 

924. Hark, how he prates of candor ! with such zeal, etc.] The N. Y. 
American, as everybody knows who reads it, and wishes it were silent 
on this point, is day after day ringing fresh changes on the same tune 



352 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

To hear him praise the pure and manly breast, 930 
You 'd think he were Jove's bastard, at the least ; 
But put aside the mask, and look within, 
'T is Tmolus' widow in the lion's skin. 
Much did he laud Theresa^s tragic lay. 



of its own magnanimity. Verbum sap. : It would puzzle the Devil him- 
self to extract bowels from a drum. 

930. To hear him praise the pure and manly breast,] The regular 
subjects of our newsman's daily sermons, are " manliness," " straight- 
forwardness," " highmindedness," &c. ; and the corresponding adjec- 
tives, " manly," " straightforward," " highminded," &c., form his favorite 
cant-phrases. We shall convince the reader that the preacher is not 
merely a finger-board by a roadside. 

Jld populum phaleras : ego te intus, et incute^ novi. * 

931. — Jors's bastard — ] Hercules. ** 

935. — Tmolus' widow — ] Omphale. By the by, what her play- 
mate says in the Frogs, when Bacchus assumes his lion-skin, will ap- 
ply most literally to the very similar masquerading commemorated by 
our poet : — 

OS reif fAoc, T^v A«^>jTja, ivvetf/cai firi ytXav* 

» # # 

■ ev^ 6I0S T UfjH a^offoStjcat rav yiXuv, 
'O^ut XtovTiiv itt) x^oKurou xu/nivtiv. 

Aristoph. Ran. 42, 43, 45, 43. * 

934. Much did he laud Theresa's tragic lay,] 

" Poems, Translated and Original ; by Mrs. E. F. Ellet — 1 vol. Phila- 
delphia, Key 6c Biddle. — There is both genius and knoivledge, two widely differ- 
ent things — in Mrs. Ellet's poems — and this little volume therefore may be safely 
welcomed, as an added honor to our literature, and as entitling its young authoress, 
to take her station among those who have successfully vindicated woman's claim to 
enlighten, improx-e, and delight the world. 

" Of the Poems here embodied, many have heretofore appeared in different period- 
icals ; others are now first given to the light. Among these is the tragedy of Theresa 
Contarini, which Miss Philips performed so admirably at the Park, last spring. — 
It has, we think, great merit, as a tragedy — though perhaps wanting for complete 
success, or rather popularity, on the stage, more acquaintance %oith theatrical details, 
than could be possessed by the writer [ ! ! ]. 

* Pers. iii. .-JO. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 353 

Much too John Bailey's buskins of a day, 935 

u We select a short Poem, which is quite in the style of Mrs. Hemans. 

" ' Death. 
« ' Ye may twine young flowers round the sunny brow 
Ye deck lor the festal day,— 
But mine is the shadow that waves o'er them now, 

And their beauty has withered away. 
Ye may gather bright gems for glory's shrine, 

Afar, from their cavern home — 
Ye may gather the gems - but their pride is mme. 

They will light the dark cold tomb. 
Thy [The ?] warrior's heart beats high and proud, 

I have laid my cold hand on him 5 
And the stately form hath before me bowed, 

And the flashing eye is dim. 
I have trod the banquet room alone — 

\nd the crowded halls of mirth. 
And the low deep wail of the stricken one 

Went lip from the festal hearth. 
I have stood by the pillared domes of old, 
And breathed on each classic shrine - 
And desolation gray and cold 
Now marks the ruins mine. 
I have met young Genius, and breathed on the broto 

That bore his mystic trace — 
And the cheek where passion was wont to glow 

Is wrapt in my dark embrace. 
They tell of a land where no blight can fall. 

Where my ruthless reign is o'er - 
Where the ghastly shroud, and the shadowy pall 

Shall wither the soul no more. 
They say there 's a home in yon blue sphere, 

A region of life divine : 
But I reck not-since all that is lovely here. 
The beauty of e-'^th-is mm^.'^^ _^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^ 

a ™a„, who can fancy excellence where 't doe ' -^; g„, ^^^ ,.3. 
to merit though it stare him m the face Aceordmg y, .^ 

eerning editor insertmg the followng p^ce (j -''J j.^^^.^^ „, ;,, 
his paper, as written by a lady for a « »* Th^ ^^ ^^^^^^ 

Blind,") simply as a .^^/---f r*''- ' j^'^J^ .^fi first lines (which 
censurable in this piece but the bad taste ot the <.^„t, emtt- 

45 



354 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Yet had no word of grace for Willis' play ; 

"fragrance of the south," though the want of the sense of smell is not 
necessarily numbered among a blind man's deprivations: all the rest 
would not disgrace the muse o/* Armstrong. 

" To Mr. 

" Thou dwellest amid the throng 

Of the world's votaries, but thy spirit wears 
So bright an impress of its purer birth 
That earth-stains rest not on it ; — thou art one 
Whom fortune has encumbered with her gifts, 
For thou hast much to thee superfluous, 
Much that doth make thee careful when thine heart 
Might else be light and cheerful. Throw aside 
This weight of vanity ; the poor man's prayer 
Will bring a richer blessing on thy head 
Than hoarded gold can purchase. Look around — 
How manij thousand shapes doth misery vjear 
In this strange world of ours : some pine in icant, 
Seeking in vain from charity's cold hand 
Tlie food that nature claims ; — some are tossed 
For many a weary month on the hard couch, 
The best that penury can yield disease. 
There be some too whose ears have never drunk 
The blessed sounds of nature, and whose lips 
Have never framed a language to express 
The full heart's overflow of Joy or woe. 
And some — not least in suffering — are debarred 
The glorious light of Heaven. Oh! think how dark 
This world must seem to him whose night and day 
Are marked but by the drowsy, ticking clock, 
Or nature's weariness, — to whom the spring 
Brings no green landscape, and tvhose summer loalks 
Can never wear the bright enamelling 
Of buds and flowers that bless your eager sight. 
Think what a world of bliss must be shut out 
From him whose sightless eye-balls turn in vain 
To the warm sunbeam, or the fragrant south 
Which sends its perfumed welcome on the breeze. 
Oh ! when to this sad lot the bitter sting 
Of poverty is added, who can close 
His heart to charity's appeal for aid ? 
' Freely ye have received, then freely give.' " 
Let me observe here, as I have in the case of another eulogium, let me 
observe impressively, I say, and I expect no man to doubt me, that I 
know nothing of the piece, or of the writer, but what I see here. I am not 
like the editor of the American : those I praise are not my friends, nor 
are those my foes whom I censure. I love no man whom I have com- 



CANTO FOURTH. 355 

Not for Bianca ! though her baldest line 
Were, for such brows, a wreath almost divine. 



mended in this poem, and, as I love none, so is there none who figures in 
this poem whom I hate. I do, indeed, most heartily despise the pert and 
lively dunce, Rubeta, that weightless weathercock, Petronius, and 
that dirty ditch, Margites ; but even to these I bear no malice. I should 
cheerfully see the two first prosper, to their heart and pocket's content, 
so it were in any other trade than that they follow, — and even in that, 
if one of them would deal no more in spurious literature and outside-sam- 
ples of religion, and the other would give up the reviewing part of his 
establishment, take a better clerk, and no longer advertise his own gen- 
erosity, — and I should rejoice to hear that the last had drained off" all 
his stagnant water, and was determined to do nothing in future but sit 
before a mirror, and spit on his own reflection. So much for ourself. It 
IS SINCERE ; and, without a wish to play the bully, we caution meddlers 
to look to their own affairs, nor, when the bow is drawn, to come in the 
way of the shaft.* 

935. JoBN Bailet^s buskins of a day,] There was a gentleman, a 
merchant, among the friends of Petronius, who, according to the Man- 
hattanese Aristotle, was to electrify all the cotton-bags in Pearl-street 
by the success of his muse. We forget the name of the piece, but re- 
member reading some dozens of verses descriptive of a chariot-race at 
Rome, the which Petronius had selected to prove his judgment, but 
which proved, very fairly, what was afterwards put beyond a doubt by 
the immediate damnation of the piece on its representation, and its sub- 
sequent oblivion even in the newspapers. 

936. Yet had no ivord of grace for Willis^ play ; — JVot for Bianca ! 
though — etc.] A day or two after the first performance of Bianca Vis- 
conti, there appeared in the N. Y. American a flippant communication, 
from the pen of one of the editors' boyish correspondents, wherein the 
tragedy was denied all merit, even that of displaying tolerable versifica^ 
tion. As Petronius, who, for reasons best known to himself, is no 
friend of Mr. Willis's, permitted, at the time, the piece to pass without 
comment, nor subsequently corrected its censure, it is presumed that it 
had his sanction; consequently that Mr. Willis is, in his estimation, 
incapable of attaining even common success, where Mrs. Ellet and 
Mr. Bailey were admitted to excel. The copy-right of Bianca is said 
to belong to Miss Clifton. Hence this tragedy has never been pub- 

* The bow is bent, and drawn. Make from the shaft ! 

Lear. A. i. Sc. 1. * * 



366 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

What matters it ? that praise the bard may spare 

lished, and, as we have not witnessed its performance, we can only 
judge of such selections from its scenes as have appeared in the news- 
papers. To the good taste, and the justice of Mr. Locke, of the A''ew 
Era (a New York journal), we are indebted for the only passages we 
have seen of Bianca, and it is from his paper of Sept. 8th, 1837, that 
we extract the following beauties. Observe, we are not pronouncing 
upon Bianca Visconti as a tragedy ; as a whole, we can know nothing 
about it : we are merely claiming for the passages which follow, such 
merit as the best poet in America might be proud to acknowledge, even 
though that same were Wm. Cullen Bryant. 

# # # << j^e must love me, 
Or I shall break my heart ! I never had 
One other hope in life ! 1 never link'd 
One thought but to this chain ! I have no blood — 
No breath — no being — separate from Sforza ! 
Nothing has any other name ! The Sun 
Shined like his smile — the lightning v^^as his glory — 
The night his sleep, and the hush'd moon watch'd o'er him j — 
Stars writ his name — his breath hung on the flowers — 
Music had no voice but to say Hove him, 
And life no future, but his love for me !" 

A finer instance of amplification, and one more natural to the passion 
of love, it would not be easy to find in any modern poet. 
* * * '^ Wed him to-morrow 1 
So suddenly a wife ! Will it seem modest. 
With but twelve hours of hurried preparation 
To come a bride to church ! Will he remember 
I was ten years ago affianced to him ? 
I have had time to think on't ! Oh, I'll tell him — 
Wlien 1 dare speak I'll tell him — how I've loved him I 
And day and night dreamed of him, and through all 
The changing wars treasured the solemn troth 
Broke by my father ! If he listens kindly, 
I '11 tell him how I fed my eyes upon him 
In Venice at his triumph — when he walked 
Like a descended god beside the Doge 
Who thanked him for his victories, and the people 
Shouted out, ' Sforza ! Live the gallant Sforza !' 
Iicas a child then — but I felt my heart 
Grow, in one hour, to woman! " 

We will not quarrel with the expression " to woman " (for to woman- 
hood,) because of the sentiment, which would redeem a greater solecism. 
" Love conceives 
No paradise but such as Eden was — 
With two hearts beating in it.'' 



CANTO FOURTH. 357 

Whereof the grossest fool still gets the biggest share. 940 



There is a pretty image for you ! gracefully expressed, and, that with- 
out which its gracefulness were nothing, perfectly just. — As a happy 
expression of a feeling well known and often described, belonging to 
the full bliss of an affection not yet wearied by disappointment, nor 
cloyed by fruition, we add the following lines, which immediately suc- 
ceed the above in the play : — 

" Oh, I '11 build 

A home upon some green and flowery isle 

In the lone lakes, where we will use our empire 

Only to keep away the gazing world. 

The purple mountains, and the glassy waters 

Shall make a hush'd pavilion with the sky, 

And we two in its midst will live alone, 

Counting the hours by stars and waking birds, 

And jealous but of sleep !" 
Now take this scene of another sort. " Sarpellione," (we borrow 
the words of Mr. Locke), 

"The wily Sarpellione, having been foiled in his attempt to withdraw Sforza from 
the Milanese alliance, resolves on his destruction. To this end, he poisons the ear 
of Brunorio, Sforza's lieutenant, and wins him over to the service of Alphonso, his 
master, and persuades him to murder Sforza. Bianca, who has been informed by 
Sarpellione of the existence of her brother, who attends her in the capacity of page, 
(Giulio,) overhears the plot, and forms the horrid design of substituting Giulio in the 
place of her husband, for the double purpose of saving his life and of securing to 
herself, and thence to Sforza, the succession of the crown, under the impression, 
that, by sacrificing to his ambition, she will gain his love." 

# * * 

" Page. Sforza has gone in — 

May I sleep then, sweet Lady, in his place 1 

Bi. — No — boy ! thou shalt not ! 

Page. Then will you ? 

Bi. Oh God ! 

I would I could ! and have no waking after ! 
Come hither Giulio ! nay — nay — stop not there ! 
Come on a little, and I '11 make thy pillow 
Softer than ever mine will be again ! 
Tell me you love me ere you go to sleep ! 

Page. — With all my soul, dear mistress ! 

[Drops asleep] 

Bi. Now he sleeps ! 

This mantle for his pall — but stay — his shape 
Looks not like Sforza under it, Fairjlowers 

[Heaps them at his feet, and spreads his mantle over him] 
Yoiir innocence to his ! Exhale together, 
Pure spirit and sweet fragrance ! So — one kiss ! 



358 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Yet, had Visconti sprung of English brains, 



Giulio ! my brother ! who comes there ? wake Giulio ! 
Or thou 'It be murdered! nay— 'twas but the wind ! 

[Withdraws on tiptoe and crouches behind a tree.] 
I will kneel here and pray ! 

[Brunorio creeps in, followed by Sarpellione at a distance.] 
Sarp. Hark ! 

Strike well and fear not ! See — he sleeps. 

Bi. [Springing forward as he strikes. ] Giulio ! 
Giulio! awake! 
Ah God ! 

[She drops on the body, the murderer escapes, and 
Sforza enters.]" 

That simple " Ah God ! ", in the place where it occurs, is actually 
superb. 

Two other instances we have before us of the same exquisite tact. 
They are both found at the conclusion of the piece. The first is this, 
where Bianca has just confessed the murder: — 

'' Now you know all ! I 'm glad it is not I ! 
I would not do such murders to be loved! 
No ! if you were an angel !" 
The second, where Bianca dies : — 

'' I will sleep here with Giulio 
Till the bell tolls — 

[Sinks, and Sforza bends over her. The scene closes.]" 
I know no more affecting conclusion in any tragedy ; few, in English 
tragedy, in so good taste. 

We have given already a very fair portion of Bianca ; but we cannot 
resist adding one other passage, which Mr. Locke's fine taste, and un- 
envious temper, have enabled us to lay before the reader, to the latter's 
enjoyment, as well as to the honor of Mr. Willis, and the disgrace 
of Petronius. 

" If the rose 
Were born a lily, and by force of heart 
And eagerness for light, grew tall and fair, 
'T were a true type of the first fiery soul 
That makes a low name honorable — They 
Who take it by inheritance alone — 
Adding no brightness to it — are like stars 
Seen in the ocean, that were never there 
But for the bright originals iii Heaven ! 

Sarp. — [Sneeringly.] Rest to the gallant soul of the first Sforza ! 

Bi. — Amen ! but triple glory to the second ! 
I have a brief tale for thine ear. Ambassador ! 

Sarp. — I listen. Lady ! 



CANTO FOURTH. 359 



And English pride watch'd o'er its parent's pains, 
Petronius' slang had cramm'd him to disgust, 
And silenc'd Locke, who durst be only just. 



m. Mark the moral, Sir ! 

An eagle once from the Euganean hills 

Soared bravely to the sky. [To Sforza.] (Wilt please my lord 
List to my story ?) In his giddy track 
Scarce marked by them who gazed upon the first, 
Followed a new-fledged eaglet, fast and well. 
Upward they sped, and all eyes on their flight 
Gazed with admiring awe, when, suddenly, 
The parent bird, struck by a thunderbolt, 
Dropp'd lifeless through the air. The eaglet paused, 
And hung upon Ids loings ; and as his sire 
Plashed in the far down loave, men looked to see him 
Flee to his nest aflfrighted ! 

Sf. — [With great interest.] Did he so ? 
Bi. — My noble lord — he had a monarch's heart I 
He wheeled a moment in mid air, and shook 
Proudly his royal wings, and then right on, 
With crest uplifted and unwavering flight. 
Sped to the sun's eye, straight and gloriously. 
Page. — Lady — is that true ? 
Bi. Ay ! men call those eagles 

Sforza the First and Second !" 

941, 942. Yet had Visconti sprung of English brains, — And English 
pride watcK'd o'er its parenVs pains,] As in the case of Ion, mentioned 
below. * * 

943. Petsonius' slang had crammed him to disgust,] This independent 
newsman is completely a slave to English opinion, and does his utmost 
to bring others into the same subjection ; yet, as might be supposed, no 
man makes louder pretensions to freedom from such prejudices. Let us 
give a recent example of his reverence for British authorities. 

'' Notwithstanding a reference to the opinions of our transatlantic contemporaries 
on subjects of literary criticism is considered heterodox, and even treasonable, we 
feel it a duty to advert to the reception of Mr. Prescott's History of Ferdinand and 
Isabella, among European literati." N. Y. Am. March 24th, 1838. 

Would the reader ever guess who are these " European literati " ? 
He goes on to say : " The London Spectator, [ ! ! ] in an article, cfc." 
It is fortunate for Mr. Prescott that the merits of his composition are 
not to be decided by the dicta of a newspaper, or two such encomiasts 
were enough to damn it. * 

• As an instance of the facility with which labor is performed in the present days 



360 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

As Straight before us, on the verge of sky, 945 

We see no stars, but needs must look on high, 
So common minds, agape to vulgar fame, 
Find merit only in exalted name. 
Headstrong and rash although Petronius be. 
No ass the footpath better knows than he. 950 

This truth let Bulwer's Gothic farce declare, 



944. Locke, who durst he only just] The editor of the JVeio Era, who, 
as the reader has seen, took the trouble to examine a poem which the 
equitable, and discriminating Petrojvius was contented to leave to the 
abuse of his correspondents. 

950. JVo ass the footpath better knows than he."] It is a propensity of 
asses to keep in the trodden path at the side of a road, and never take 
the crown of the highway. See the N. Y. American on popular repu- 
tations. * * 

951. This truth let BuLWEn'a Gothic farce declare,] Petronius found 
Mr. Bulwer's play, like Mrs. Ellet's, to contain in abundance that 
poetry which Bianca was altogether deficient in. 

lb. — BuLWERS Gothic farce — ] " The Duchess de la Valliere " was 
but wanting to the fame of Mr. Bulwer, in order to make a certain 
couplet completely applicable to his writings. 

TJius all his prose and verse are much the same : 
This, prose on stilts ; that, poetry fallen lame. * 



of steaming, we present the reader with the cream of our newsman-critic's " re- 
view" of Mr. Prescott's work : — 

" For its hereafter, from the moment toe first looked into its pages, we had not a mo- 
ments solicitude^ for we felt that it would become one of the standards of history for all 
who read the English language." [N. Y. Am. May 19^A, 1838.] 

We know not how it is. we, who have scarcely done any thing else, all our life, 
but turn over the leaves of books, had read completely through two of the three 
volumes, and reflected not a little on their contents, before we came to our present 
conclusion, that they stand at the tip-top of American literature. What will Pe- 
tronius take for his secret? 

* From the Dunciad (Bk. i. 189.), with a trifling necessary alteration. There is 
an epigram, which I have seen somewhere translated from Le Brun, that will 
come in very well here : — 

" lu prose and in metre will Ned still compose : 
But in writing he seems to lie under a curse •, 



CANTO FOURTH. 361 

Thy clay sarcophagus, frail La Valliere ! 

Commencing with the third scene of Act iv. the piece is respectable,— 
excellent in parts, — though nowhere rising, even supposing that the 
characters were suitable, * to that dignity and strength of composition 
which is requisite for the serious drama. All the rest of the play is the 
merest stuff that was ever put upon paper. It is true, its author tells us 

For he constantly puts too much verse in his prose, 
And as constantly puts too much prose in his verse," 

* # 

* Since this note was written, we have seen, in the London Times for July 18, 
1837 a translation (from the Journal des Debats) of a very unmeasured critique on 
this play of Mr. Bulwer's. Its nature may be judged of by the opening paragraph, 

which is as follows : — 

«Astran.^e piece, which is neither comedy, tragedy, nor melodrama, is now actmg in 
London wherein Louis XIV. and France in the 17th century are treated {compromis) m the 
most vulgar and farcical fashion. It is difficult to form an adequate idea of the gross absur- 
dity i-norance of men and manners, folly and conceit, contained in this work, which some 
people^ake upon them to say was eagerly received in England, for an entire fortnight, as a 
thef.d^<^uvre.[a) A more grave, though at the same time a more innocuous, insult to the 
.lorv and the amours of the greatest monarch who has honored the throne, could not have 
been offered. The author of this work, to which it is so difficult to assign a specific denom- 
ination, enjoys, it is said, in his own country, what is termed a celebrity. His name is Mr 
Bulwer • he is a member of the House of Commons, and he has written a great number of 
romances, which (dealing with them as leniently as possible) may possibly sustam a com- 
parison with the worst of Victor Ducange's. For these reasons, wehave thought ourselves 
Justified in honoring Mr. Bulwer's piece with a notice, as we sometimes do the melodrames 
of the Ambigu." i • , • . 

The third sentence lets us into the secret of the critic's indignation, which is too 
extravagant in its expressions for the occasion. Mr. Bulwer, though very, very far 
indeed from being a great author, is certainly not a little one 5 nor, whatever his 
mistakes and absurdities as a writer, can he be accused with justice of gross zgnor- 

(a) M. Janon seems to disbelieve this. And he has reason. - The World of Fashion says. 

^'" ArS'S pTrformance the play was much hissed. Some of the scenes were extremely 
dull and the whole of the third act was so wretchedly contrived, and so miserably perform- 
ed, Ihat, had the author been anybody but Mr. Bulwer, the play might then have been ter- 
minated by the manifestations of the displeasure of the audience." 

And in another part of the same magazine, we have :— 

« There is no dramatic interest in the story of La Failure, there is no moral that can be 
drawn from it. She was a sufferer, but she had been guilty, and we cannot say that her suf- 
ferings were undeserved. No one can sympathize with her, and consequently, Mr. Bul- 
wer's play is dull and heavy in the performance. There is no particular merit m the way 
in which Mr. Bulwer has treated the subject 5 there is no originality in the thoughts which 
he has embodied ; his Duchess is a mere grisette ; we have seen such a woman personated 
a hundred times by Mrs. Yates and others ; and, in the absence of any indications of abso- 
lute genius, some of the scenes startled the morality of the audience. These have since been 
amended. The necessity for their amendment is a proof of the dements of the production. 

46 



362 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

And Talfourd's florid bombast makes fond men 

that " To thoughts and to persons that belong to prose, belongs prosaic 
expression." {Preface to the Play.) Where then was the use of ineas- 

ance of men and manners. There are however, in the piece, despite of occasional 
injustice, many remarks which deserve quoting. For example : — 
. " Scene the third, the theatre represents ' the gardens of Fontainebleau, brilliantly illumi- 
nated with colored lamps ;' enter Grammont and Lauzun. Let me premise, that this is 
the same Lauzun who was the most brilliant cavalier and the greatest favorite at the Court 
of Louis XIV. ; that Grammont is the same Chevalier de Grammont who is the hero — the 
charming hero — of Hamilton. Alas ! alas ! we shall soon see in what fashion Mr. Bulwer 
has 'resuscitated' them. 

"In the piece Lauzun is a Marquis of the lowest degree, a miserable giggler, without wit, 
youth, or beauty ; who talks of nothing but his creditors, like one of Regnard's chevaliers. 
Grammont is a sorry scrub, who cracks jokes with Lauzun, and has not a word to say to any- 
body else : ' Grammont. — His Majesty is cold — Augustus more than Ovid.' Who would 
have expected Ovid to be lugged in with reference to Louis XIV. i" 'Lauzun. — He must 
have a mistress. While the King lives chaste, he cheats me, he robs me of ninety-nine per 
cent. The times are changed — 'Twas by the sword and spear our fathers bought ambition 
— vulgar butchers ! But now our wit's our spear, intrigue our armour, the antechamber is 
our field of battle, and the best hero is the cleverest rogue !' Have we not here two very 
pretty young sprigs of high life i" But, by Heaven, the footmen of King Louis XIV., in the 
most retired room in the chateau, even when in their cups, would not have dared to hold 
such language as is here put into the mouth of the Count de Lauzun." 

Again : — 

" — when Bragelone becomes affected -. — 

' I loved thee not, Louise, 
As gallants love ; thou wert this life's ideal, 
Breathing' through earth the lovely and the holy, 
And clothing poetry in human beauty ." 

" Bragelone ought surely to have said to Mademoiselle de la Valliere what he had just be- 
fore said to M. de Lauzun : — 'I pray you grace for that old-fashioned phrase.' " 

Several other passages from the poe7n are cited, equally faulty, though not always 
understood by the French critic. We then come in the fourth column to this para- 
graph :— 

» The fifth act is quite worthy of the four preceding ones : nothing is doing ; nothing goes 
on j it is always La Valliere weeping, Lauzun giggling, and Louis prosing. The author 
knows as little how to move the passions as he does of history, —he bewilders himself in a 
confused chaos of incidents and thoughts. In the Convent of the Carmelites, one after the 
other, arrive the Friar Bragelone, Mademoiselle de la Valliere, the King, the perpetual Lau- 
zun, and Madame de Montespan. Lauzun is the bearer of a dismissal to Madame de Mainte- 
non from the King. 'Our gracious King permits you to quit Versailles.' Bragelone de- 
claims against the vanities of life and of love : 'A never-heard philosopher is life !' 

" He is on the point of ' hoarding ' a glove dropped by Mademoiselle de la Valliere, which 
he had picked up, but he checks himself, saying 'No ! it is sinful !' This Bragelone is al- 
ways the same ; he orders woodbine to be planted in the first act, and he dares not touch the 
* relics ' of his mistress in the last. Mademoiselle de la Valliere is ushered in, with music, 
to take the veil •, when, as before, at the very foot of the cross, the King arrests her : 

' Louis. — Thou"'rt saved — thou' rt saved ! to love, to life ! 
La Valliere.— Ah, sire ! 

Louis. — Call me not Sire ! 



CANTO FOURTH. 363 

Deem the pure drama's age has come again, 

uring off this prose into heroic lines, with a capital letter at the head 
of each of them ? Surely, this is strange infatuation. And if the 
author would not elevate their diction into verse, (we set aside the idea 
of poetry, to oblige him,) what constrained him to introduce such person- 
ages ? The truth is, it little becomes Mr. Bulwer, of all men, to talk 
of " the florid prettiness of modern verse," or of ''the elaborate quaint- 
ness of the elder dramatists." No man has shown more of that " florid 
prettiness " than he has, in his other writings, and, had he consulted 
these "elder dramatists," whose condensation of thought, and energy of 
expression, he has thought proper to term " elaborate quaintness," dis- 
paraging his own critical judgment that he may aflTect contempt for a 
merit he must despair of ever imitating, had he consulted these, I say, 
he would have seen, how they make a monarch talk like a monarch without 
departing from nature, and how they put into the mouths of vulgar char- 
acters language according with their qualities or station, without 
making them guilty of prose.* — As to the plot, and its dependencies, 
they are perfectly absurd. And let us observe to Mr. Bulwer, that, 
when an author professes to despise the dramatic unities, it is because 

Fly back, fly back, to those delicious hours 
When I was but thy lover. 

And then my dream — my bird — my fairy flower — 
My violet ! 

The fickle lust of change allured me 1' 
" These little tender speeches, so very pretty, and so well adapted to this chapel of the 
Carmelites, have not the slightest effect in the world upon sister Louise ; and the King takes 
himself off, saying — ' I will not hear thee ! Touch me not ! Speak not ! I-l-I choke ! These 
tears — let them speak for me. Now, now, thy hand — 0, God ! farewell for ever. —[Exit.'' 
" Thus ends this wretched drama." 
And what a difFerent ending from Mr. Willis's ! 
* We know very well that it is sometimes advisable 

" propriis rem prodere verbis, 



Indiciisque suis :" (a) 

but then what follows 1 

" EA SINT MODO DIGNA CaMOENIS :" {b) 

and again : — 

'' Nil adeo incultum, quod non splendescere possit : 
Praecipue si ciira vigil non desit, et usque 
Mente premas, mnltumque animo tecum ipse volutes." (c) 
But Mr. Bulwer writes too fast to profit by this advice ; and he will have his 
reward for it : what is so hastily produced, must expire with proportionate rapidity. 

(a) ViD« Poet. iii. 160. * * 

(6) Ibid. 161. * * 

(c) Ibid. 207 - 209. * * 



364 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Where, spurr'd and rein'd at once, his tragic steed, 955 

his genius is not strong enough to bear up under the restraint; 
and, further, that even a man of ordinary skill would, instead of crowd- 
ing eight or nine years into the compass of three hours, have begun 
the play where Mr. Bulwer numbers Act the Fifth, and made a better 
thing of it. It is not the author of the Duchess de la Vallihe, even 
with Dr. Johnson to back him, tliat can set aside Aristotle. 

953, 954 — Talfourds Jlorid bombast — etc.] Namely, in the famous 
tragedy of Ion, which everybody was prepared to find every thing that 
is elegant and correct, and which accordingly everybody did find 
every thing that is elegant and correct. Yet perhaps a stronger instance 
of popular delusion is not to be found in the present century. In the first 
place, there is no real and absolute distinction of characters in this play : 
the only difference between them is in the part which each is made to 
assumejTexternally (so to speak,) in the action of the piece. The stern 
tyrant Adrastus, the inexperienced boy Ion, the veteran sage Agenor, 
all talk the same flowery and labored language. Take away the names 
in the dialogue, and you would not know which is the speaker of each 
individual passage. From its excessive embellishment. Ion is often what 
Aristotle calls a mere (Enigma. (See the Poetic, Sect. 37, of Twy- 
whitt's edition, — Chap. xxii. of Cooke's, and others.) * Mr. Talfourd 
is doubtless familiar enough with the Liber de Poetica. I would ask 
him, then, if he do not remember, that, in the very division we have re- 
ferred to of that little treatise, the writer insists upon perspicuity ? if, 
indeed, the authority of Aristotle, or of any of the writers who have 
copied and improved upon him, be necessary to teach what one would sup- 



And yet, it is well ; for the soil is too light, and would never produce any thing du- 
rable, though you were to manure it, and plant it, and prune its product for nine 
years. The author of the Duchess must always remain what he is, a prose-writer in 
verse, and a poet in prose, (a) 

* However much, at the present day, one may affect to despise the authority of 
Aristotle, — and such will always be the cant of those who feel the check of le- 
gitimate criticism too much for them, and cannot manage their genius, — he is surely 
(even in this generation) entitled to respect, whom Cicero pronounced the first of 
philosophers, excepting Plato, (De Fin. 1. i.,) and, with the same exception, excel- 
ling all others in capacity and diligence. ("' Aristoteles longe omnibus, (Platonem 
semper excipio) praestans et ingenio et diligentia." Tusc. Disp. i. 10.) 

(a) 1 believe that all well-educated and right-thinking men agree with me in my general 
condemnation of this author-, and I beg that such will not suppose that these extended re- 
marks are meant for them, the few, but for the many, the mass of readers, who are likely to 
lose the use of what little brains they possess, through the bad taste of such writers as Mr. 
BviwKK, and the impertinence of newspaper-critics like Petkonrs. 



CANTO FOURTH. 365 

A hard-mouth'd pacer of celestial breed, 

pose that nature and common sense must indicate ; for with what object 
do we write, if not to be understood ? and how, Mr. Talfourd, shall we 
follow your subject, if the imagination has to step aside, first to the right, 
and then to the left, incessantly, to gather flowers, or to pick up pebbles ? 
This is the fault of the day, the egregious error that should dazzle no 
writer over five-and-twenty, and can only arise from bad taste* or short- 

* Apropos of bad taste. Mr. Sargeant Talfourd has written the life of Lamb, 
and the Neiv York Review, a quarterly publication, gives of it this judgment, and the 
specimen which follows, (we quote from Petronius, who says it is " so beau- 
tiful "!) :— 

" The little which he has done, has, however, been done in such a manner as to add a new 
leaf to the laurels of the author of ' Ion.' Good taste, good feeling, a love for the man as 
well as an admiration for the author, a rare sagacity in criticism, and a benevolence in spi- 
rit ever ready to see the soul of good in things evil, and to put the best construction upon all 
doubtful acts — these are the qualifications which he has brought to his task. We have had 
constant occasion to remark upon the delicacy of his discrimination, and the justness and 
profoundness of his rejections. What can be more true and more admirably expressed, 
more full of that tvhich makes up the best and highest style of criticism, than the following 
observations upon ^ Rosamond Gray 'J^ (a) 

" ' In his tale, nothing is made out with distinctness, except the rustic piety and grace of 
the lovely girl and her venerable grandmother, which are pictured with such earnestness and 
simplicity as might beseem a fragment of the book of Ruth. The villain who lays waste 
their humble joys is a murky phantom without individuality ; the events are obscured by 
the haze of sentiment which hovers over them, and the narrative gives way to the reflections 
of the author, who is mingled with the persons of the tale in the visionary confusion, and 
gives to it the character of a sweet but disturbed dream.. It has an interest now beyond that 
of fiction ; for in it we may trace, ' as in a glass darkly,' the characteristics of the mind and 
heart of the author at a time when a change was coming upon them. There are the dainty 

(a) •' It is this vigorous, direct and manly tone," (says the vigorous, direct, and manly 
Petkonius, in his ' review' of the Review, Jan. 6th, 1838,) " that we very much need, and 
see so little of, in our periodical literature — and when sustained, as in the instance before 
us. by high attainments in letters, by varied knowledge, by great research, and the elo- 
quence of style as well as thought, it cannot fail to produce most beneficial results." 

Pr^vo ! this deserves another specimen of <' the instance before us." The eloquent of 
style as ivell as thought is speaking of Mr. Bulwer, and his Ernest Maltravers .•— 

— " for achieving an enduring place in literature (says the eloquent of style as well as 
thought), he possesses in too low a degree several primary qualities, and among them espe- 
cially what may be tevmeA artistical constructiveness. He has fertility of invention, but 
little creative power. [There's a distinction without a difference, for you, Mr. Bulwer !] " 

N. Y. Review, No. iii. p. 233. 

By the novel phrase we have italicized, we suppose is meant that justness of conception, 
and skill in construction, which mark a master of his art. Such dogmatistical pedantiscity, 
we augurate, is destinated to manipulate a most ameliorating influence on the hitherto-in- 
domitable rusticality of United-Statesian authorhood, and exaltate to a populear altitude of 
artistical refinementability the luxuriant forest of our arboraceous literature. Under which 
impression, "we bid" the Reviewers, in the congenial elegance of the iV. F. American, 
•' God speed [ ye ] ! " and " Go ahead !" 



366 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Feather'd and bell'd, with head erected high, 
Snorts through the mist, scarce moves, yet seems to fly. 

sighted ambition. "Okus (says Longi.nus, in a passage which I recom- 
mend to the author of Ion, as well as to his complaisant admirers,) 

"OXaS S' iOIXlV ttVKI TO ol'SiTv, Iv ToTs fldXiffTCCj ^V(r<[>VX<tKTOTXTOV' (fiVffll ya^ U'Ta.VTtS 

»i uiyiB-ovs i(p/tfi,ivoij (ptvyovTii atrS-tvitas xai ^ti^oryiros KOirdyvuffiv, ouk oTo oreas it) 
rovB-* v-ro(pi^6VTai, ^ii3-o/u.ivoi tu, — M. & y a X u s a^oXiff^cciviiv ofcas 
luyivis af^upTtifca. Kukoi ^l oyxot, xa.) i^t ffufidTuv xa,) Xoyuv, oi ^avvoi xai 
avaXyi^m, xai fji,ri-7roTi Xi^uffTavrt; hf^K; us Toiivavrtov' av'^lv yaf, <patr), 
^y> DO r i po V v^ ^ ca ^ I X ou. [Z^C SuoL, Sect. HI.] 

Yet is this very tragedy, at times, so beautifully pathetic, (let us in- 
stance the death of Adrastus,) that we are guilty of no affectation, 
when we say we regret, that a piece, which in some respects approaches 
quite near to dramatic excellence, should be so plastered with ornament, 
as to appear rather a show-box than a series of well-finished paintings. 
And this was the work, they tell us, of some fifteen years ! Isocrates' 
Panegyric over again ! If Mr. Talfourd, or his enraptured eulogists, 
would know how the passions may be moved without stepping one inch 
out of the domain of Nature, and how poetry may be written without 
laying hold of the moon, we refer them to the crowned tragedy of 
Monti. 

955 - 958. Where, spurred and rein'd at once, etc.] In these verses, I 
have endeavored to set out the characteristics of Ion : and the reader 
will allow me to remind him, that, in this view, not even the phrase ce- 
lestial breed is to be considered as without a precise application, being 
not merely expressive of any Pegasus whatever, but meant to show that 
this tragedy is truly poetical, albeit not of the purest school ; or, to re- 
sume the metaphor of the text, Mr. Sergeant Talfourd's horse may be 
said to be better dressed for parade than actual service. 

957. — belVd — ] An expression which suggests to us, in corrobora- 
tion of the Author's remarks on the florid poetry of ion, a very applicable 

sense of beauty just weaned from its palpable object, and quivering over its lost images ; 
feeling, grown retrospective before its time, and tinging all things with a strange solem- 
nity ; hints of that craving after immediate appliances which might give impulse to a har- 
assed frame and confidence to struggling fancy, and of that escape from the pressure of 
agony into fantastic mirth, which in after-life made Lamb a problem to a stranger, while 
they endeared him a thousand fold to those who really knew him." Vol. i. p. 90. 

Truly indeed is this worthy of the author of " Ion " ! the same murk]) Jiashiness 
(to parody his own absurd language) wii/iowf perspicuity, the same ambition after 
false ornament, which crushes the life out of his meaning, by the glittering trash he 
heaps upon it out of mistaken kindness. Mr. Carlyle himself could not write 
more fustian foolery than the lines we have underscored. 



CANTO FOURTH. 36T 

Health to the King ! nor let his readers smile ; 
Long may he live recondite judge of style 960 

phrase of the preceptor of Zenobia's : — to -ravrxxo^ Kuhma? il*i(p9-ai, x/«v 
eoipta-Tixov. [De Subl. xxiii.] To which may be added, with a like object, 
Faber's note upon the passage : — " Apud antiques, xutunst seu tintin- 
nabula, frasnis et phaleris equorum addebantur; non tamen uhique et sem- 
per, sed cum decursio aliqua equestris aut transvectio fiebat, seu quid 
aliud ejus generis, quod splendide fieri deceretP Or, as we would say- 
in our country, the best horses carry bells when the snow is on the 
ground, but it is only the itinerant dealer in rags and rusty iron that 
keeps the belly of his pony jingling at all seasons. * * 

960-963. Long may he live, recondite judge of style — Who sees a mir- 
acle, etc.] 

'^ The French Revolution : a History. Three volumes in two. By Thomas 
Carlyle. Boston : Charles C. Little 4" James Brown. — We cannot be mistaken in 
supposing this work will attract much attention. It is something quite new in its 
manner and power of execution. Discarding the connected, grave, and stately 
style of history, it isolates groups, or individuals, or events, and, clustering round 
them all the incidents and accessories of the hour, presents rather a series of dra- 
matic sketches, in lohich ive are made to share in the individual feelings and hopes 
and acts of those before us, with an intensity that, at times, is almost painful; and 
yet there runs throughout a connected thread of narrative." Etc. Etc. 

" We copy some striking passages." [iV. Y. Am. Jan. 20th, 1838.] * 

These striking passages spread through nearly three entire columns 
in small type, of his newspaper. What they are we shall give the read- 

* That silly publication, the American Monthly Magazine, says of the same 
stuff:— 

" It is a picture book, a series of sketches of the striking scenes of the Revolution, 
t07iched with a power which brings every thing before you, enchains your interest, and 
makes you read in spite oT a prejudice against the artifice and affectation of the dic- 
tion, — to which at last you become reconciled,iho\igh. perhaps -never quite cordially :" 
and concludes its reviewal thus: — " Still, you may condemn all this, you may get 
angry at it and scold about it, if you please ; hut, if you begin to read the book, you will 
read it to the end." [Number for March 1838, p. 290.] (a) 

And such, O Americans, are the guides to taste in your republic ! 

(a) We take occasion to say that this dainty extract from the Am. M. Magazine is a fair 
specimen of the tone of criticism in all magazines, whether domestic or foreign, at the pre- 
sent enlightened era in literature. There are no such words, nowadays, as respectable 
and respectability : every thing that is good is great, that which interests must strike and 
thrill, and the youth who can tell you, without prosing, how the Arabs make a mess of 
sheeps' intestines, possesses not talents, but genius, and hiis easy pen displays no longer abil- 
ity, but power. In the same number of the Am. M. Magazine that is mentioned above, the 
leading article in the series of " Reviews " commences thus : — 

" A rose bathed and baptized in dew — a star in its first gentle emergence above the horizon 



368 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Who sees a miracle in Tom Carlyle, 
Makes madness but a thrilling power intense, 



er some idea of, by a few extracts. But we beg him, beforehand, not to 
think these any madness of our own : the sentences we quote are ac- 
tually inPETRONius's sheet ; and whether he or Mr. Carlyle concocted 
them is only known to Bedlam. 

" Which of these six hundred individuals, in plain white cravat, that have come 
up to regenerate France, might one guess, would become their king ? " Etc. " He 
with the thick black locks, will it be ? With the hure, as himself calls it, or black 
boar's-head, fit to be ' shaken ' as a senatorial portent ? Through whose shaggy 
beetle-brows, and rough-hewn, seamed, carbuncled face, there look natural ugli- 
ness, small-pox, incontinence, bankruptcy, and burning fire of genius ; like comet- 
fire glaring fuliginous through murkiest confusions ? It is Gabriel Honore 
Riquetti de Mirabeau, the world-compeller ; man-ruling Deputy of Aix ! According 
to the Baroness de Stael, he steps proudly along, though looked at askance here 5 
and shakes his black cheveture, or lion's-mane ; as if prophetic of great deeds." 

Is not this glorious stuff? We must have some more of it. 

" How the old lion (for our old Marquis too was lionlike, most unconquerable, 
kingly-genial, most perverse) gazed wondering on his offspring 5 and determined to 
train him as no lion had yet been ! It is in vain, O Marquis ! This cub, though 
thou slay him and flay him, will not learn to draw in dogcart of Political Economy, 
and be a Friend of Men ; he will not be Thou, but must and will be Himself, 
another than Thou. Divorce lawsuits, ' whole family save one in prison, and three 
score Lettres-de- Cachet ' for thy own sole use, do but astonish the world." 

A little more. 

" He has pleaded before Aix Parlements (to get back his wife) ; the public gath- 
ering on roofs, to see since they could not hear : ' the clatter-teeth (claque-dents) ! ' 
snarls singular old Mirabeau ; discerning in such admired forensic eloquence nothing 
but two clattering jaw-bones, and a head vacant, sonorous, of the drum species." 

Again : 

" All reflex and echo (tout de rejlet et de reverbh-e) ! " snarls old Mirabeau, who 
can see, but will not. Crabbed old Friend of Men ! it is his sociality, his aggrega- 
tive nature : and will now be the quality of all for him." 

If the reader understand what all this means, it is more than we da 
But it is such capital sport to read it, and know all the while, fever- 
dream-like, that actually not bending is one his optical convexities, cat- 
like-over-mouse, on High Dutch, that we must give one delicious little bit 
more. 



are types of the soul of Nathaniel Hawthorne ; every vein of which (if we may so speak), 

is filled and instinct with beauty. It has expanded like a blossom, in the gay sunshine and 
sad shower, slowly and mutely to a rich and natural maturity." 

This is the sort of stuff (not even common sense, and scarcely English,) of which is made our 
modern criticism. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 369 

And, with a fellow-feeling, fustian sense ! 



" Towards such work, in such manner, marches he, this singular Riquetti Mira- 
beau. In fiery rough figure, with black Samson-locks under the slouch-hat he steps 
along there. A fiery fuliginous mass, which could not be choked and smothered, 
but would fill all France with smoke. And now it has got air; it will burn its 
whole substance, its whole smoke-atmosphere too, and fill all France with flame. 
Strange lot ! Forty years of that smouldering, with foul fire-damp and vapor enough ; 
then victory over that ; — and like a burning mountain he blazes heaven high ; and 
for twenty-three resplendent months, pours out, in molten flame and molten fire-tor- 
rents, all that is in him, the Pharos and Wonder-sign of an amazed Europe} — and 
then lies hollow, cold for ever !" 

This is quite enough display for Mr. Thomas Carltle : but Petro- 
Nius we must touch up again with the long pole, and show the ladies 
and gentlemen how well the extraordinary animal knows its own mind. 
Compare, with his remarks above, the following, made exactly six months 
afterwards : — 

" Critical and Miscellaneous Essays. By Thomas Carlyle. 2 vols. 
Boston : James Munroe Sf Co. 1838. — The celebrity attained by Mr. Carlyle, wheth- 
er his desert — to its full extent — or not, will naturally render us cautious in the 
expression of an opinion, which may differ someivhat from the verdict of the million. 
The very extravagance of his admirers, leads to a suspicious examination of his 
claims to merit, pushed as they are to the very verge of idolatry. It appears that, 
with many, his adoption of the German idiom in the fabrication of fanciful epithets, 
and tortuous, knotty phrases, ringing the changes upon a long row of synonymes, is 
his principal claim to their admiration. But to us it savors of literary quackerij." 

This, despite its contradictions, is so like good sense, and so unlike 
any thing we have ever yet seen of Petronius's reviewing, that we 
strongly suspect his intellect received some foreign enlightenment in 
the interim between the publication of the History and of the Essays. 
We quote it as a phenomenon. But he will change again before 
long. * 

* Sure enough. To-day, Sept. 5th, as this portion of the manuscript is going- through 
our hands, for its last revision previously to being set in type, we meet in the N. Y. 
Am., of Aug. 31st, the following passage from Carlyle, given as a choice extract of 
the editors' own, under the head of ''Fruits of Desultory Reading.'"' (God bless the 
man that invented letters !) 

"Death of a King, and birth of Democracy. — Alas! much more lies sick than 
poor Louis XV : not the French King only, but the French Kingship ; this, too, after long 
rough wear and tear, is breaking down. The world is all so changed -. so much that seem- 
ed vigorous, has sunk decrepit — so much that was not, is beginning to be ! Borne over the 
Atlantic to the closing ear of Louis, King by the grace of God, what sounds are these ; muf- 
fled, ominous — new in our centuries ? Boston Harbor is black with unexpected tea : behold 
a Pennsylvania Congress gather, and ere long, on Bunker-Hill, Democracy announcing, in 
rifle-voUies death-winged, under her Star banner, to the tune of Yankee-doodle-doo, that she 
is born, and, whirl-wind like, will envelope the whole world ! Carlyle." * * 

47 



870 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Shout, Bedlam ! let fresh charcoal smut your wall ; 
A mate is found will swallow all you scrawl ; 965 



Ver. 962. — thrilling — ] I use this epithet, because, like intense, it is a 
favorite expression with Petronius and his kind, Avhether journalists or 
magazinists, though on this public occasion the modest newsman con- 
tented himself, as we have seen, with a substitute, stronger indeed, but 
less elegant. 

So difficult is it for our smart little critics to do without this cant, that a person " who 
was formerly engaged in the editorial office of the Journal of Commerce" in New 
York, " a member of Dr. Spring's church," when committing a forgery by writing 
a letter to one merchant in the name of another, in which he modestly requested the 
loan of a small sum of money, so far forgot himself in the habit of his trade, as to add, 
in the expression of a fervent wish to see the former, that he, the writer, had news of 
' thrilling interest ' to communicate !" See the N. Y. Am. of Oct. 29, 1835. 

There are few occasions in life, except in the intercourse between the sexes, where 
we are made to thrill, and preciously few are the books, if any, where the interest 
of the story is of '* an intensity that at times is almost painful." Yet, splendid has 
taken the place of elegant, superb of Jine, magnijicent of capacious, princely of gener- 
ous, fairy of delicate, and so on, and so on 5 why should not thrilling and intense be 
allowed to follow in the train of usurpation ? * * 

963. And, ivith a fellow-feeling, fustian sense ! ] We have given al- 
ready, at the close of the third Canto, a specimen of our newsman's 
grandiloquent style. We now add another elegant extract. 

" When the lorithing political bankrupts shall seek to impair the effect of this ap- 
peal to the people, by declamations against all banks, and by efforts to drive the Whigs 
into the defence of the State institutions, and thereby to identify them as a party with 
banks — the ready answer will still be, '' these banks, hypocrites ! which ye now de- 
nounce, you yourselves brought into being, endued with power, sent your special agent, 
Amos Kendall, to tamper with and corrupt ; to them, you yourselves gave up the cus- 
tody of the public moneys — married them to the State — and now, when you seek to es- 
cape from the adulterous connexion, and cry out divorce! divorce ! we tell you, to your 
teeth, that we, who were guiltless of promoting or consenting to the marriage, will lend 
you no aid to annul it — tomc/i less will we take to our bosom those whom you frst de- 
bauched, and now denounce as harlots." N. Y. Am. Sept. 1, 1837.* 

" Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune ! all you gods, 
In general synod, take away her power ; 
Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel, 



* As the employer, so of course the employed. 

" [Correspondence of the New York American.] 

" Boston, July 25, 1838. 
" Yesterday I was the observer of a scene which would require a sunbeam for a pencil, 
and the heavens for a scroll, that sufficient justice might be done the subject." [To wit, 
" the Webster Dinner."] * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 371 

Alone their motley merits more divine, 
Whose eulogy yields sixpence by the line ; 

And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven, 

As low as to the fiends." * 
Why should not such talents be employed for the good of the country 
in the' House of Representatives ? why not in the Senate ? Let a 
meeting be called forthwith, and Petronius be proposed as a candidate 
for the coming session. Then shall young America listen to the 
thunders of a modern Demosthenes, and the whole world shake to the 
echoes. 

But let not America think that this is all her worthiest son (but one) 
can do ; sometimes he assumes a more modest mein, and rivals Rubeta 
in the gentler graces of pleasantry. Thus, May 12th, 1838 : — 
" The Weather. 
"Winter lingers in the lap of spring."— Ritchie. 
'' May, who has been a very cross, fretful, crying child, will enter her teens to-mor- 
row, and it is high time that she should be imbued with such a sense of propriety as to 
eject from her lap that decrepid little wretch. Winter. Let her wipe away her tears, 
change her dress, and try if she cannot be a more amiable girl, than she has been an 
infant. She is now making an attempt to smile, let her commence a new career to- 
morrow, and realize the hopes of the fond circle of her friends." 
Sometimes, too, he dares compare with him in wit ! 
"Carried in the Affirmative.- A daily paper advertises 600 baskets ^i/ 
Champagne. ' Are you ready for the question ? Those in favor of this Champagne 
will please to say Ay ! -the contrary, No !' The Ayes have ,t.'' 

^ lEd. N. Y. Am. Aug. 31st, 1838.] 

966, 967. — their motley merits more divine, — Whose eulogy — etc.] 

insani ridentes praemia scribae. f 

Be it observed, however, it is not at the perquisites of open advertise- 
ments that we laugh (they are all in the way of fair trade), but at the 

* Hamlet, Act ii. So. 2. * * , , ^ 

t HoR Serm i. Sat. v. 25. Cornelius Nepos, cited by the commentators on 

this passage, says, " Apnd nos revera, sicut sunt, mercenarii scribe existtmantur." 

TheLi^Lf the present age, though somewhat different m function, have not a 

whit degenerated from their Roman prototypes. Our Author might say, with the 

poet Crabbe, — 

" I too must aid, and pay to see my name 
Hung in these dirty avenues to Fame 5 
Norpatj in vain, if aught the muse has seen, 
And sung, could make those avenues more clean; 
Could stop one slander, ere it found its way ■ 
And gave to public scorn its helpless prey." 

The Newspaper. * * 



372 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Be the same songstress, lying auctioneer, 
Rope-dancer, monkey-feeder, pamphleteer, 



secret- service money obtained by the insertion of delicate little commen- 
datory notices in editorial type, in a part of the paper where advertise- 
ments are supposed to be never admitted. We have a quantity of these 
from the JV*. Y, American, but we shall select only enough to illustrate 
the text, and shall present them in the order in which their subjects there 
are named. But first let the reader see, on p. 293, how Petronius 
insinuates a charge of corruption against his contemporary Rubeta. 

"NiBLo's Garden. — Mrs. made her first appearance here on Monday 

night and was highly successful. She unites to a handsome person, great musical 
taste, etc. She cannot fail to add to the varied attractions of this celebrated place 
of public resort, which has been crowded every evening since it opened. — [Cour- 
ier.] " [June 20th, 1838.] 

" [Connnunicated.] 

" We request the attention of our readers to the sale of eleven lots which are to 
be offered at auction tomorrow by, etc., and as the sale will be positive and the lots 
sold not subject to redemption, a good opportunity is offered to any person who 
wishes to reside in the most delightful part of our city." [3Tarcli 8th, 1838.] 

"A large assortment of splendid fancy articles will be sold at the Auction Store 
of, etc., to-morrow morning at 11 o'clock. All persons desirous of making handsome 
New Year presents, should attend the sale." [Dec. 27, 1837.] 

" NiBLo's. — Last night but one of the Ravels. — This astonishing family perform in 
two pieces this evening, and the Grand Ascension in the open garden is to be repeat- 
ed by Madame Jerome and Javelli Ravel, who run up (we might almost say, Jiy up) 
a single rope to the terrific summit of a lofty tower, erected for that purpose, sur- 
rounded by brilliant fireworks ! — [Communicated.] " [Juhj 5th, 1838.] 

"National Theatre. — We understand that the Exhibition of Animals at this 
house from the Zoological Institute attracts crowded audiences nightly. The scene 
of Mr. Van Amburgh, as a gladiator, in the cage containing lions, tigers, and leop- 
ards, is said to be one of the most extraordinary displays of fearless intrepidity ever 
witnessed." [June 20th, 1838.] 

"The Manual, or, &c. By . —Were this book valuable on no 

other account, &c. 6lc. [Coram. Advertiser.] " [Dec. 7th, 1837.] 

This last is the only one that has an obelisk (f ) to mark that it is paid for. 
But since the month of August, 1838, Petronius has taken it into his head 
to imitate Rubeta, occasionally, in this apology to decency. Therefore, in 
future, if any near-sighted person, or one not acquainted with hiero- 
glyphics, should not perceive, or, perceiving, should not understand, the 
little thing in the corner, he can only blame himself, if he get taken in 
at an auction, or run the risk of smothering his family at an exhibition not 
worth a cent ; for what business has he to suppose such an editor as 
Petronius writes all that he appears to write, or approves of every 



CANTO FOURTH. 373 

Down to the page where shines, or lately shone, 970 
The messing-mate of princes, princely Stone. 



thing he would seem to recommend ? — But the venality ? The venality ! 
You mistake : it is philanthropy, liberality, genuine democracy, regard for 
the public. What ! are not the elements open to all ? Be not ashamed then, 
O Petronius, of thy facility ; still lend the sanction of thy high author- 
ity to everybody that will pay for it, and glory in this, that thy favors are, 
like celestial blessings, showered upon all men ; for ivaier is free to all, 
neither is fire of one possessor ; the lovely stars look down on myriads, 
and the bright Sun himself is but a god of the people. * 

970, 971. Down to the page where shines, etc.] " The Knickerbocker 
Magazine." A long puff of this periodical pamphlet, in the very style 
of the advertisement of the " N. Y. Mirror Magazine," was inserted in 
the columns of the N. Y. American, (June 30th, 1838,) as a communica- 
tion. Nay, the editor of this journal went so far as to preface the mat- 
ter in these words : — " The Knickerbocker has full justice done to all 
its merits in « communication to be found in another place." Now this 
very communication had appeared, a few days before, in the Commercial 
Advertiser, and, for aught I know to the contrary, in other journals. It 
was therefore most certainly a paid advertisement. The reader shall 
judge of the style of this article, which is passed off upon the public, by 
the editor of the N. Y. American, as a simple literary notice, and one of 
a fair kind. 

" No periodical in this country can boast the number, variety, and character of 
the contributors, that this our favorite magazine possesses. Take the volume, for 
instance, which will close with the June number. We find in it, besides a great 
variety of communications, from writers of established reputation, of entertaining or 
amusing light reading, as well as of a solid and useful character, articles from the 
pens of Cooper, the American novelist, Dr. Dick of Edinburgh, the distinguished 
author of the 'Christian Philosopher,' &c., Prof. Longfellow, of Cambridge, author 
of 'Outre Mer,' Thos. Campbell, England, Nicholas Biddle, Esq., the popular au- 
thor of the ' Palmyra Letters,' Mr. Buckingham, the Oriental Traveller, Willis Gay- 
lord Clark, Esq., or 'Ollapod,' Hon. Chief Justice Mellen, of Maine, E. L. Bulwer, 
the novelist, COL. STONE, of N. York, Gait, author of ' Laurie Todd,' Rev. Mr. 
Colton, of the Navy, author of ' Ship and Shore,' &c., Herbert, author of ' The 
Brothers,' and Mrs. Sigourney, with many others of scarcely less merit and reputa- 
tion. These writers, it should be remembered, are included in only the last five 
successive numbers, while in those of previous ones, as given in the advertisement 
of the tenth volume, are the names of more than a hundred writers known to fame 

* From Philostratus. Mfi Sri ai6ov tw tuxdAw, aXXa aenvvvov tu> hoiixoy koI yap 
S^wp naai TrpdKCirai, Kal nvp ohx fvo;, kuI aarpa ndvTcav Koi b rjXios Srjixdaios OeSs. Epist. 
Ixix. (Opera. FoL Olearii. 1709. p. 948.) * * 



374 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

And modest is he. Who can be so more ? 



in the United States, as well as in Europe, including most of our popularnative, and 
many eminent foreign, authors. Among these original contributors are the follow- 
ing names, taken almost at random. ***** 

" We can call to mind several writers who are not even mentioned in the list to 
which we have referred, large and distinguished as it is, who have established a wide 
and deserved celebrity, as contributors to the Knickerbocker — such as the author, 
etc. etc. The engravings of the Knickerbocker, although scarcely alluded to by the 
proprietors, having never been promised but gratuitously given, are worthy of par- 
ticular mention. Some of these — the ' Scene on the Hudson,' for example, by that 
gifted artist Smillie — /las never been surpassed in this country. We remember 
also, three or four well, e^c. e^c. We should not omit to mention the critical de- 
partment, which is altogether in keeping with the high character of the work, etc. The 
excellence of material, and the neatness and beauty of the typographical execution 
of the Knickerbocker, are too well known to require, etc. Without derogating, 
therefore, from the high claims of many of its cotemporaries, we give it as our de- 
liberate opinion that the Knickerbocker is one of the best periodicals in America, 
and deserves the wide circulation which it has acquired, not only in this city, where 
it is more generally diffused than any of its cotemporaries, but doubtless throughout 
the United States — since the strongest recommendations of the work, from the 
most discriminating sources, have for a long time reached us, [here the cat was let 
out of the bag,] not only from every quarter of the Union, but the British provinces, 
and in several instances, from distinguished journals abroad." 

The author of the " Tales and Sketches," of the " Letter on Animal 
Magnetism," and of the " Visit to Montreal," has an honorable place, it 
will be seen, among such names as Mr. Campbell, and Mr. Bulwer. 

971. The messing-mate of princes — ] The editor of the N. Y. Comm. 
Advertiser devoted three several days to three several accounts of a 
"/efc " given by the Prince de Joinville, to which he had the honor of 
being invited for want of better company. We cannot refrain from giv- 
ing, from the last and longest of the three descriptions (June 25th, 1838), 
two extracts, — one illustrative of his cleanliness of taste, the other of 
his purity of morals. 

" Five hundred two-legged featherless animals, disgusted with their cream, straw- 
berries, and champagne, were bountifully pouring them overboard for the breakfasts 
of the fishes — while the other two hundred-and-odd of the passengers were too 
weary and broken-spirited to indulge in the usual jeers on such occasions, or to en- 
joy the picturesque appearance of so many cascades." 

* * ^ * * 

" The spacious deck afforded ample room for several sets of cotillions, and, though 
keeping at a respectful distance, we could not avoid observing the fact that there 
was more graceful and beautiful waltzing than ought ever to be indulged in any 
country, or on any occasion. But it must be borne in mind that the pageant was 
French. Nevertheless, we must ever, and on all occasions bear our testimony 
against the lascivious waltz, however beautiful and fascinating in the eyes of the 
fashionable world." 



CANTO FOURTH. 375 

Few men he christens rogue, no woman whore, 

Ver. 971. The messing.mate of princes — ] The editor of the N. Y. 
Comm. Adv. is renowned among his contemporaries for a passionate ad- 
miration of titles, pedigrees, and all the appurtenances of rank, and occa- 
sionally indulges his American readers with such useful information as 
the following : — 

' • ' The rumored marriage of Miss , the richest heiress in the kingdom, with the 

grandson of Lord , is said to be off, as the family is catholic, and the offspring 

must be educated as Roman Catholics, by marriage settlement.' 

" We have seen this paragraph about a dozen times, in as many different papers — 
affording a beautiful illustration of the hardihood ivith which many editors will put 
forth sayings on subjects of which they know but little more than nothing. [Good ! ] 
The foundation for the paragraph was in the following mysterious announcement, 
which went the rounds of the London papers about a month ago. 

'' ' The rumored marriage between the richest heiress in the kingdom and the 
grandson of a noble duke, is said to be off. By the marriage settlement of the noble 

family of H d all the boys must be brought up and educated Roman catholics.' 

" Our journalist, seeing the H d, could think of nothing but , not know- 
ing that Lord has no grandson, and that there is no more Catholicism in the 

family than there is in the bishop of London. The party alluded to is Lord 

, son of the Earl of , and grandson of the Duke of , the family name 

being ; and the , at least this branch of them, are catholics." 

In the same paper [June 15th, 1838) we have : 

*' We beg leave to correct an error that seems to be very general among our con- 
temporaries of the press, who will insist on misspelling the name of the young noble- 
man who accompanies Sir and Col. . It is not the right honorable 

, Earl of , in Scotland, and Viscount of the United King- 
dom, but the honorable Mr. , eldest son of the Scottish Earl of , and by 

courtesy known as Lord , of Castle, in Fifeshire." 

This certainly must be very interesting matter to the good citizens of 
New York, the greater part of whom have never seen the books of the 
peerage, baronetage, and landed gentry, of Great Britain. See, too, in 
the paper of June 21st, 1838, a story told by the Colonel, of a street-ad- 
venture in London ; how he, the Colonel, picked acquaintance at a shop- 
window in Pall Mall with a real duke and a real duke's little son ; and 
how the Duke, who was a wag, and found great amusement in listening 
to the delightful twang and choice expressions which grace our literary 
newsman's elocution, encouraged his impudence, and permitted him to 
walk beside him and his little boy (both being "very plainly dressed — 
the father in frock-coat and white pantaloons, the boy in velvet round- 
about and trowsers of French drilling,") till they got actually " as far as 
Cockspur street," where they " parted with a mutual, bow and good 
morning." Could we be assured that the elegant person known as Col. 
Stone, and the hero RuBETA,are really one, we should ascribe this hank- 



376 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

But deals his filth with so unconscious sin, 

Our grandams lick it up without one grin, 975 

ering after the flesh pots of Egypt to his royal origin ; for " blood will 
out," as the old women say. * * 

974 - 977. But deals hisjilth — etc.] 

Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes 7 * 
i. c, " There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is 
not washed from their filthiness." f 

This will do for text. Now for the comment. — The admirable Pe- 
TRONius, in his honest zeal for the purity of young women, falls foul, as 
we have seen, of certain novels, which are a class of books that should 
never be read by very young persons of either sex. Let us see how 
this conscientious guardian of the public morals conducts himself in his 
own journal, which cannot but be seen and read by the young of both 
sexes, who, from a natural curiosity, and also through a want of interest 
in political scurrility, will be sure to select for perusal all the records of 
crime and brutality, and every libidinous anecdote, its columns may con- 
tain. Passing over a passage we have cut from " an amusing article," 
to which, in Rubeta's approved style, he calls attention in his own prop- 
er columns, (N. Y. American, May 26th, 1835,) and of which this is the 
most modest portion : — 

^' My partner never kept time nor tune with me. I am glad of an opportunity to 
change partners. — Instead of a warm bed, I put her into a cold one 5 but if you 
are a pretty girl, 4'C., I will not serve ijou so. Yours, &c. Bob Short : " — 

we come to the number for June 13th, 1835. Here we have, on the 
most conspicuous page (the second), a very delicate passage from Dean 
Swift. Exempli grat. ; 

" I told his Honor that nobility among us was quite a different thing from the 
idea he had of it ; that our young noblemen are bred from their childhood in idle- 
ness and luxury ; that, as soon as years will permit, they consume their vigor and con- 
tract odious diseases among **** ; and when," etc. 

This from one who has preached so much about the indecency of the 
Herald, and other small papers, is pretty well. Again, in a very improv- 
ing story of a fool and a kept-mistress, (Oct. 24th, 1835,) which this 
judicious gentleman calls an " exceedingly clever paper," we have in 
the midst of "go/c/en-bound" opera-glasses, and " nos/nZ-cuRVES of 
Greece," and " damp hair hanging in heavy threads," this exquisite 
passage : — 

" Pray who can that be ? " said I to a friend. 

" What a question ? " was the reply. " How ignorant you are ! Not to know 
her argues yourself unknown. That is the splendid Miss Reay, — the fair friend 

* Juv. ii. 24. * * t Proverbs xxx. 12. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 37T 

And blushing misses gloat his page along, 
ConsoPd to feel the King can do no wrong. 



of Lord Sandwich, who is her protector. He has given her the protection that vul- 
tures give to lambs. She has borne him two or three lovely, cherub-like children. 
He is twice her senior in years, — has robbed her of her best treasure," — etc. 

Every one knows what follows the unmarked quotation about Iambs, 
from that silly play, Pizarro .• it is quite explanatory, and, we confess, 
very applicable to the case. But, to be serious, why are such tales rec- 
ommended to the notice of young women ? The reader would never 
guess that Petronius has an answer ready. Hear him, attentively: — 

" Such a fact [the vast circulation of newspapers in America] imposes, or 
should impose, upon the conductors of the press, a very deep sense of the respon- 
sibility of their position, and of the far-reaching consequences of the doctrines or 
intelligence they may dispense. 

" It is not, however, so easy as at first sight may seem, to make up a newspaper, 
under this conscientious sense of the effects it is to produce. 

" To a certain extent it must be a iecord of passing events, — whatever they be, 

— and, unluckily, the worst or most ludicrous incidents and details seem to possess 
most attraction. At least, upon no other hypothesis can it be accounted for, that 
newspapers generalbj vie with each other in Jinding out and publishing all the 
MINUTIAE OF CRIME AND vicl;. Horrors ! too— as horrible as possible — are 
eagerly sought for; and yet all such details vitiate taste and feeling, without impart- 
ing anij corresponding good. 

" So in the summary of what is passing in other countries. Over and above the 
ordinary political and commercial intelligence, most of the extracts made, relate 
rather to the frivolities of life than to its higher interests or noble pleasures. Yet 
a paper made up only of moral lessons, in its miscellaneous department, would be 
praised, — and starved. 

" There is, unquestionably, great room for improvement in most of our newspa- 
pers ; and it is in large cities, and with papers of vast circulation, like the Courier, 
that this improvement may best begin. A paper of small circulation cannot venture 
upon the independence, which rather gives, than follows, the lead of public opinion, 

— an independence which a paper with such circulation as the Courier, possesses 
so completely. 

" A paper thus situated, may follow the dictates of right with the perfect assurance, 
that, among its many thousands of readers, it cannot thwart the interests or designs 
of any such number as to hazard its own prosperity." (July 19th, 1838.) 

This is about as good an argument for doing wrong as a bawd might 
advance, that if she, honest creature ! did not keep a brothel others 
would, and that it was her only livelihood. But hear him again. A subscriber 
having rated him pretty roundly for publishing some beastly anecdotes of 
the mistresses of George the First, Petronius, after denying, either very 
ignorantly or very impudently, that there was any thing therein " to ad- 
minister to, or provoke, impure feelings," goes on to say, (June 26th5 
1837,)- 

. 48 



378 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Hence, though he prints Horne's good advice in full, 
The devil a bit he helps to make jour trull ; 



"All that, — without entirely losing the character of a newspaper, which is only 
another word for a daily record of the affairs of the world, a brief epitome of the 
history of man, his virtues, his follies, and his crimes, — we can [his own italiciz- 
ing:, not ours] exclude from our columns, of reference to vice, whether in high or 
low places, we strive habitually to do." 

Now, as we shall presently show, there is not an act of rape, or incest, 
or bestiality, that finds admittance to his columns, (and he publishes all 
that are novel, with many of older date,) but what he could exclude, 
simply by letting alone his scissors ; for ihey are all of them selections 
from other papers, gSithered from all parts of the U.mted States, as well 
as from foreign countries. These instances principally are " daily rec- 
ords " of vice in low places : for the " high," take the following " record," 
from his paper of Thursday, Aug. 25th, 1836. 

"Anecdote of Cardinal Richelieu. — This famous minister, and prince 
of the holy Catholic and Apostolic church, openly affected intrigues of gallantry at 
court, with the airs of ' a plumed cavalier,' and went out disguised as a layman in 
quest of nocturnal adventures in the purlieus of the capital. At one moment he 
was dallying with the famous courtesan, Marion de Lorme, — at another he was 
making gallant advances to Anne of Austria, for securing the succession to the 
Crown. Brienne relates the following scene between the Queen and the Cardinal, 
— it is an historical curiosity : — 'The Cardinal, (says he,) was desperately in love 
with a great princess, and made no secret of it ; respect for her memory forbids me 
to name her. Son Eminence voulut mettre une terme a sa sterilite, — 
mais on fen reinercia civilenient." 

We could go on to give instance after instance, where this nice per- 
son has selected dirtiness of all kinds, for the gratification of his juve- 
nile readers ; how even other animals besides man come in for their share 
of filthy commemoration, — as, for one example, the extract made for 
the special use of the ladies, (Dec. 13th, 1837,) from the London Chron- 
icle, showing the powers, and the Avant of power, of certain heroes of 
the king's stud, — how — 

'-When the Colonel was purchased by George IV., for four thousand guineas, he 
was then a race-horse of the first class; but as a stallion, though he has *•*•*»» 
some of the finest mares in the kingdom, he has yet produced no race-horse of 
high value : " 

which " record " had the honor of appearing in the same paper with 
the story of a rape, and a day or two after the " record " of a rape com- 
mitted by a man upon his own daugliter: all of which records have a 
wonderful effect in expanding the young idea. We could go on, we 
eay, to make our volume perfectly redolent with filth, but thus much 
shall suffice in justification of the lines of our text. We are only sorry, 



CANTO FOURTH. 379 

And, if he dips the worst from Crayon^s best, 980 
His paper sanctifies the greasy jest, 

that the object of our poem obliges us to add what follows, of the same 
kind, in the subsequent notes. 

978, 979. Hence, though he prints — etc.] — "Glutto sorbere salivam 
Mercurialem,'" * the Author has already shown to be one of the dainty 
and daily employments of Petronius. — I hope that this pains will not 
be altogether ineffectual, but that the sense of the community, awakened 
to the beastlmess of these editors, will compel them a/Z to reject for ever 
such indecentnotices, which disseminate corruption more widdylhan any 
one other cause] know of. Nor need the "unfortunate," or " the Unfortu- 
nate's Friend," suffer by the restriction: not the crow and carrion more 
surely come together, than will these filthy mountebanks and their 
wretched victims. * * 

980 981. And,ifhe clips the worst from Craton''s best,— His paper sanc- 
mes \he greasy jesl,-] In his « review " of the " Beauties of Washing- 
ton Irving," which appeared in September, 1835, our newsman made the 
followina^'selection for the ladies, out of the whole volume, (a volume of 
selections,) pithily terming it a " a little Shandyan." We insert the pas- 
sage entire, because of certain remarks with which we shall fol- 

low it. 

"The Waltz. — As many of the retired matrons of this city unskilled in 
'gestic lore ' are doubtless ignorant of the movements and figures of this modest 
exhibition i will endeavor to give some account of it, in order that they may learn 
what odd capers their daughters sometimes cut when from under their guardian 
wings. On a signal being given by the music, the gentleman seizes the lady round 
her waist; the lady, scorning to be out-done in courtesy, very politely takes the 
gentleman round the neck, with one arm resting against his shoulder to prevent en- 
croachments. Away then they go, about, and about, a»rf about,-' About M, 
sir ? '-About the room, madam, to be sure. The whole economy of this dance 
consists in turning round and round the room in a certain measured step, and it is 
truly astonishing that this continued revolution does not set all their heads swim- 
min- like a top ; but I have been positively assured that it only occasions a gentle 
sensltion which is marvellously agreeable. In the course of this circumnavigaUon, 
the dancers, in order to give the charm of variety, are continually changing their 
relative situations ; now the gentleman, meaning no harm in the roorld I assure you, 
madam, carelessly flings his arm about the lady's neck, with an air of celestial im- 
pudence j and anon, the lady, meaning as little harm as the gentleman, takes him 
round the waist with the most ingenious modest languishment, to the great delight 
of numerous spectators and amateurs, who generally form a ring, as the mob do 

• Pers. v. 112. 



380 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Where not an act of lewdness, or a rape, 

But crawls in edgewise, and takes current shape, 



about a pair of amazons pulling caps, or a couple of fighting mastiffs. After con- 
tinuing this divine interchange of hands, arms, et cetera, for half an hour or so, 
the lady begins to tire, and ' with eyes upraised,' in most bewitching languor, pe- 
titions her partner for a little more support. This is always given without hesita- 
tion. The lady leans gently on his shoulder, their arms entwine in a thousand 
seducing, mischievous curves, — don't be alai-med, madam, — closer and closer they 
approach each other, and, in conclusion, the parties being overcome with ecstatic 

/atigiie, the lady seems almost sinking into the gentleman's arms, and then 

' Well sir! what then! — Lord! madam, hoio should I know.' " 

The manner and humor of this piece being Sterne's, not Mr. Irving's, 
and the subject-matter that of a dozen persons, we should ask the editor 
of the American, did we suppose he ever knew his own mind, for what 
purpose he introduced it, alone, out of " many beauties," when its sole 
merit is the indecency of its innuendo ? 

Et tamen alter, 

Si fecisset idem, caderet sub Jwrftce morum. * 

As for the literary " beauty " of " The Waltz," even with Petro- 
Nius for judge, — 

"What woful stuff this paragraph would be, 
In some starv'd hackney'd pamphleteer, or me ! 
But let but Irving own the happy lines, 
How the wit brightens! how the style refines ! 
Before his sacred name flies every fault. 
And each exalted sentence teems with thought." f 
And now, one word to this Reviewer of the Week : — 
" Justitia," says a favorite moral writer,| — "justitia sine prudentia 
multum poterit : sine justitia nihil valebit prudentia." Which, that you 
may be able to read it, we thus render into the vernacular tongue : — 
Justice, (observe the word, sir, — it is your darling,) Jw^/ice, Sir Editor, 
will make for you authority and estimation, though you wrote sillier 
tales than the present Secretary of the Navy, but not all the fawning 
which you lavish on the compiler of Astoria will advance you one jot in 
his good graces, except you time it more felicitously. 

982, 983. Where not an act of lewdness^ etc.] We must go over the 



* Juv. iv. 11, 12. * * 

t From the Essay on Criticism, altered to suit the occasion. 

t Cir. De Off. ii. 9. Pearce. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 381 

Nor is this all thy worth, who stand'st confest 
A new Paleemon, risen in the West ; 985 

revolting register of obscenities, that we may produce that conviction, in 
the minds of our readers, without which this satire were but an amuse- 
ment for an hour. 

Let us take the extreme dates of our own labors. In 1835, in the 
month of June, the JV. Y. American goes into a full detail of the philo- 
sophical experiments of the Broadway-shopkeeper of auger-hole infamy. 
Dec. 12th, it relates the nice attempts of a Broadway-shoemaker on the 
chastity of one of his customers ; the which our newsman was so eager 
to publish, that he did not even waittill the filthy fiction should be authen- 
ticated. As, like the preceding one, the morsel is of too high a flavor for 
this book, we refer the curious, who may have strong stomachs, to the jour- 
nal itself Both these bits of bawdry were extracted, if we do not great- 
ly mistake, from another daily paper. Now, as the nice Petromus is 
at liberty to select just such patches as he pleases, why did he pitch up- 
on these, if not to gratify that prurient curiosity in his female readers, 
for pampering to which he falls foul of the penny- presses ?— except it 
be, that it is to indulge his own particular predilections, which, 
from his violent condemnation of such moral fancies, is more than prob- 
able. " .Sic aliorum vitiis irascuntur,'' says the younger Pliny of such 
persons, " quasi invideant, et gravissime puniunt quos maxime imilan- 

To come down to the very time that our work is preparmg for the 
press, the spring of 1838. Let us take the single month of May. On the 
11th of that month, he gives, under the head of "Murders and Suicides 
in France," an account of a prisoner who had been condemned " to im- 
prisonment for five years, for having violated the person of his own daugh- 
ter;" immediately under which is an account of a mutilation. On the 
14th, he commemorizes, under a very attractive head, the villainy of a 
negro, named Tom, committed upon a deaf and dmnh girl ! On the 
21st, we have another Broadway-shopkeeper figuring " in a manner too 
gross and indelicate to give any detail of," (language, by the by, which, 
taken in connexion with the story, is ten times worse, for a youthful 
imagination, than the bare detail would have been.) May 23d, under 
the delicate title of" An Incident," we have a very charming attempt at 
rape, with full and instructive particulars, showing the young ruffian the 
way to manage in such enterprises. May 26th, we have recounted a case 
of wholesale violation on shipboard. And May 30th, appear adultery, 

* Ejnst. viii. 22. Edin. 12mo. 1762. * * 



382 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Thy papers fill'd with grammar out of joint, 
Essays on words, and lectures on a point ; 



detection in the act, murder; all being the instructive incidents of a nice 
little " Domestic Tragedy," so recounted as to give every satisfaction to 
the inexperienced virgin, without shocking her delicacy by a single nas- 
ty word. All these, too, are '^ elegant extracts" from other journals. 

Very seriously, however such stories may find a place in books, where 
their influence must be partial, they cannot, without a violation of prin- 
ciple, be admitted into a newspaper, which is read not only by the adult 
and vitiated, but by the very young and (as far as may be) very inno- 
cent. These latter, especially if females, will directly seize upon such 
scraps, as the only parts of a newspaper in which they can take any in- 
terest. At once, — or, if you please, by degrees, but yet unfailingly, — 
they are initiated into a knowledge, of which they would be blest indeed, 
could they, like Desdemgna, continue ignorant all their life. And now 
the seed is sown: eradicate its product, if you can. You may sooner 
root up an oak with your fingers ! Nay, you cannot groiv it over, so to 
speak, by aught that you may subsequently set in and cultivate ; for its 
roots are in the strongest of the passions, in the only one that is univer- 
sal, and its branches shall spread, day by day, till their baneful shadow 
shall, more or less, lie on every pleasant spot in the vast area of the im- 
agination. Is not this an agreeable reflection for us who have sons and 
daughters, children whom we cherish as the apple of our eye, and whom 
we strive to keep from the cursed moral taint with which we feel our- 
selves to be incurably infected ? And ourselves, — we, of either sex, 
who are sophisticate and corrupted by the world, — what advantage are 
we to derive from these details ? for, by the instinct of imitation, by 
which uniformity is maintained in the mighty mass of human kind, we 
cannot look on evil without the itch to participate. When we read of 
errors to which our proper dispositions are prone, we imperceptibly find 
therein a sanction for our own divergence from rectitude, while the 
crimes to which these errors lead we disregard entirely, or, with a natu- 
ral self-flattery, consider as quite impossible in our special case. He, 
then, whose temper is amorous, befools himself, if he think he reads 
these anecdotes of whoredom and adultery for the warning of their ca- 
tastrophe. So far as he is ignorant of his motives, he is a fool, and no 
more ; but he who furnishes the incentive is a pander to the other's pas- 
sions, and knows it all the while.* 

* An observation that is confined to the dirty sheets at which the entire scope 
©f these remarks is directed. In literature such scenes and stories must occasion- 



CANTO FOURTH. 383 

Where idle fools their betters may denounce, 
Or beg thy skill to teach them to pronounce, 
While thine own grace so softly shades each line, 990 
Downing himself might swear it is divine. 

But where to pause : to make thy worth all known, 
English would fail us, even of thy own. 
For art thou not, — thy page at least, — grammati- 
cal ? 
Etymological, precise, and dogmatical ? 995 

As we have elsewhere said in this volume, the virtue of one half of the 
world depends upon its ignorance of the wickedness of the other. 

986-9S9. Thy papers JiWd, etc. — Where idle fools, etc.] The text is 
partially illustrated in one of the examples given on p. 313, of the flat- 
tery of PalfBmon^s correspondents ; but the readers of the JV. Y. Ameri- 
can will remember how often they have been amused with discussions 
on orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody, in its columns, where 
children, who have nothing else to do, heg to know, in the prettiest 
manner possible, if such things are not so and so ; when their literary 
papa, stroking down his chin, pats their innocent heads, and answers, 
They art so, my dears, or. My dears, they are not so, to the great delight 
of the little darlings, who say to one another, as they scamper off, IsnH 
our papa a great man ! * * 

994. — thy page —grammatical ?] Almost any one of the various pas- 
sages we have cited, for various exemplification, from the J\P. Y. Ameri- 
can, will show how truly it merits this epithet; but it will be well to re- 
fresh the reader's memory with one more specimen that shall show the 
full extent of its philological acquirements. Itisitsremetfjof" Horseshoe 
Robinson." The English of a newspaper is not m itself of much im- 
portance ; but when it is referred to as a standard (God save the mark! ), 
and its pretensions to knowledge in the matter are allowed, it becomes 
proper to examine it, 

ally have place, as examples and as incidents of the life of man. There too they 
form but a portion of the narrative, or an illustration in the discussion, and are 
dressed perhaps with a delicacy that gives no stir to the senses : but here they are 
isolated pictures, and are presented always in native nudity. Besides, (to re- 
turn to our strongest argument,) poetry, history, and philosophy do not come 
before the Very yoiing, and novels should not. 



384 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Theological, as well as political ? 
Critical, surely, and hypocritical ? 
Pharisaical, jet not less Levitical ? 



"In SiDaUaw BarnAhe author gave, in a somewhat disconnected story, a series of 
pictures of Virginia life — which presented in admirable rehef, its peculiarities. It was 
in this, rather than in the interest of the story as a whole, that his success laid." Etc. 
" The blacksmith, Robinson, from whom the work takes its name — Mildred Lindsay, 
and her gallant brother, are finely conceived, and never falter- in the course of the 
narrative. " * * * — "he has assuredly extracted from the many unsung, and unhonor- 
ed, but not less daring and romantic incidents of the fierce civil war in the South." etc. 

" Mr. Kennedy, for it is no secret that he is the author, has abundantly shown in this 
work, how fruitful our revolutionary struggle is, in incidents which the pen of genius 
may aiiail of, for the historical romance — and he has shown too, his ability and fitness 
to wield that pen." June 21th, 1835. 

In this correctness and precision of language our newsman probably 
imitates his pattern, the jVational Gazelle, which says of La Martine's 
Pilgrimage, — " The work is an expensive one in Europe, but we sup- 
pose ivill be reduced, on the Waldie principle, to a moiety of a dollar,^* — 
leaving us to wonder how this transmutation, on what is elegantly term- 
ed the fValdie principle, of paper and calf-skin into coin is to be 
effected. 

995. Etymological — ] 

" By the bye, we wish the English had arranged to give to their young Queen an 
English name — Victoria is well enough for a line of battle ship — or for a fancy name 
- — but homely Elizabeth, or Ann, or Mary, would sound better to Anglo-Saxon ears." 

[A'. Y. Am. July 26ih, 1838.] 

What a pity it had not been recommended to her youthful majesty ! 
Perhaps the recommendation, coming from a person of our newsman's 
well-known taste and sacred love of English, might have prevailed. 
But we are afraid, dear Petronics, that the ears you speak of are some- 
what Norman too ; and there might be wicked men to tell you, that 
homely Elizabeth, or Jinn, or Mary, is quite as much French as Anglo- 
Saxon, though we all know that the New Testament was originally 
written in this latter tongue. 

996. Theological — ] Piety is a profitable investment for the newspa- 
pers, and Petronius has not failed to take his share of the stock, — reli- 
gious notices being important items in the advertising list. * * 

lb. — political?] In which character, whether through the boyish 
impetuosity of his temper, which makes him blind to consequences, or 
through his paltry maliciousness and womanish spite, which bid him disr 
regard them, (for it is hard to say if boy or girl be more predominant in 
his^composition,) he forgets his duty as a citizen of the United States 



CANTO FOURTH. 3BB 

Logical, ethical, even forensical ? 
Poljtechnical, and very nonsensical ? looo 

Comic and tragic, epic, melodramatic, 
Vaudevillistic, more than all operatic ? 



most shamefully, and lends his aid to foster sectional prejudices. Take 
the following specimen, among the many taunts which this man is con- 
stantly flinging out against the south, because his subscription-list looks 
solely to the north and he knows, as well as I do, that the feelings of 
jealousy between the Northern and the Southern States of the Union are 
as strong as prevail, at this day, between England and France. I know- 
very well what I am saying, and do not look to be contradicted. 

"The Big Ship. — It being understood that the U. S. Ship Pennsylvania, after 
being launched at Philadelphia, was to be sent round to Norfolk, Va. to be coppered 
and equipped, the citizens of Philadelphia and the delegates from the city and country 
to the (Convention, have addressed a memorial to the President, requesting that this 
Monster of the Deep may be completed where she was built — and where, unquestion- 
ably, workmen are at least as good, though not of as dark complexion, [his own 
Italics], as those at Norfolk, can be procured." 

" Possibly, however, Mr. President may desire — by showing his preference to slave 
labor over that of white freemen, especially when those freemen have so recently rebel- 
led against the spoils party as to reject C. I. Ingersoll as their representative in Con- 
gress, — at once to conciliate Virginia and punish Pennsylvania. We shall see." 

[iV. Y. Am. July 11th, 1837. 

If a day should come (which God, in his mercy, avert !) when the 
Union shall be broken up, and State shall be divided against State, 
that day shall we owe to Petronius and his brethren.* 

1002. Vaudevillistic — ] See, in his journal, the daily notices (" un- 
paid for, we presume — as they come not in the shape of an adver- 
tisement,"! ) of NiBLo's Vaudevilles. 



* Chiefly, but not wholly. Even so respectable a man as Ex-president Adams 
we find forgetting himself in the violence of party-spirit. Witness the letter which 
the venerable senator addressed to his constituents in this State, Aug. 13th, 1838 j 
where, among other foolish taunts, we find the following : — " the fatal duel — where 
fell another northern victim, self-immolated to the peculiar institutions of the South " 
[so printed] : an assertion, not only ungenerous, but unjust. * * 

t Petronius's own insinuation against Rubeta : see p. 293, in the notes. The 
source of his knowledge, or of his suspicions of his fellow-newsman's motives, is very 
evident. * * 

49 



386 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Domestic, yet fill'd up with matters extraneous, 

No couple of columns, of all, consentaneous, 

A ragwoman's bag even less miscellaneous ? 1005 

Time fails us half thy forces to review. 

Thou double-ramm'd Boeotian ! Here, adieu ! 

Except thou live to choke thyself with spite. 

Thy fate from singing-girls I read aright. 

Sound, flute and fiddle ! lo, Petronius dead ! loio 

The Frenchman's quibble wafer'd o'er his head. 

Prick'd out in notes, the syllables declare, 

A Mi-re of the noddle stuck him there. 

And now for thee, MARGITES ! double ass ! 
Stand up, thou drudge ! that jades may see thee 
pass, 1015 



Ver. 1009. Thy fate from singing-girls I read aright] Poets have always 
enjoyed the prerogative of prophecy. As to the singing-girls, see v. 
785. * * 

1010 — 1013. — lOf Petronius dead ! — The FsENCHMAif^s quibble, etc.] 
" The heir of the Duke de Penthievre died in 1764, a victim to his irreg- 
ularities, and particularly to his attachment to Mdlle. Mire, a lady emi- 
nent for her musical talents. The Parisian wits, who laugh at every 
thing, made the following very ingenious epitaph, composed of five 
musical notes, which are supposed to be engraven on his tomb : 
«Mi Re La Mi La.*" Percy Anecd. — Humor. 

1011. — wafer'^do^er his head.] In the manner of a bulletin. * * 

1014. — MARGITES! — ] There was a satirical poem, attributed 



* Mire put him there (Mire I'a mis la). * * 

There was at least some substance in this sort of Mire; but Petronius is really 
to be pitied, in being doomed to die for a mere Mire of the brain ; for undoubtedly the 
Poet's prophecy will be accomplished, except, as intimated, a previous dissolution a la f 
grenouiUe should render it nugatory. * * 



CANTO FOURTH. 387 

Who, doing more than other asses do, 

Bear'st thine own pannier and thy fellows' too ! 

How shall I picture thee? thy praise to sing 

Would need Stone's blackguard and the cant of 

King. 
Pull up the weeds that skirt some loathsome ditch ; 1020 
Build thence an altar ; smear it o'er with pitch ; 
The base be mud, or ordure ; and thereon 
Lay offal thick, to shrivel in the sun : 
Its wholesome reek burnt frankincense shall be, 
Most meet for infamy, and worthy thee. 1025 

to Homer, which went by this name, from the name of the person 
against whom it was written. Some writers, among whom is Aris- 
totle, regarded it as a genuine production of the author of the Iliad. 
See Sect. 7 and 8 of Ttrwhitt's edition of the Poetic (Cap. iv. of 
Cooke); also Tyrwhitt's note upon Sect. 7. ** 

Ih. —MARGITES!—] Of this dirty fellow we will merely take 
the pains to say, that he is editor of Waldie's Journal of Belles Lettres, 
which he manages with the dashing grace of Mrs. FREKE.f He has a 
fellow-feeling for the editor of the JY. Y. Commercial Advertiser, and 
cites his literary opinions with great approbation ; which is alluded to 
in the subsequent lines. Of his graces of diction it is sufficient to give 
this one sample^ from his abuse of the Yemassee .- — " Why should we 
attempt the grand fiddlestick in our plain republican corn-stalk ? " 

Conclusion.] It is with great reluctance that the Author consigns to 
the public his poem in an unfinished state ; but accidental causes, at 
various intervals, have so retarded the completion of these four Cantos, 
that the subject of the episode, which forms so large a portion of them, 
would lose much of its interest by further delay. This alone were not 



t In Miss Edgeworth's Helen, where the lady is described " exclaiming, as she 
reviewed each of the books on the table in their turns, in the sumnnary language of 
presumptuous ignorance : — ' Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments ; — milk and 
water ! Moore's Travels 5 — hasty pudding ! La Bruyere 3 — nettle porridge ! ' " 



388 THE VISION OF RUBETA. 

Thee ? Out ! thy very name defiles my text. 
Bring water, boy. Now, pass on to the next. 



sufficient to persuade to present publication, but other reasons, that 
concern not the public, have added their urgency with a momentum it 
would be difficult to resist. He therefore submits the poem in all its 
deficiencies, with a gentle hint, that those persons who shall show 
themselves dissatisfied, at wanting a place in the present volume, shall 
be accommodated, to their heart's content, in the next. 




APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX, 

[BEING A CONTINUATION OF THE AUTHOR'S NOTE 
ON PAGE 283.] 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 

HIS POETRY, AND HIS MISREPRESENTATIONS. 

Ipse facit versus, atque uni cedit Homero 
Propter mille annos." Juv. vii. 38, 39, * * 

I CANNOT here enter into an argument, to show, what I am 
sorry to say the age appears too timid to discover for itself, 
the utter absurdity of that most ignorant and presumptuous 
innovator, the man who has dared singly to break through the 
structure cemented by the labors of near three thousand years, 
and, placing himself in the gap, cry out to the present genera- 
tion to admire the prospect opened through the broad vacuity. 
If God should be pleased to spare my life yet a few years long- 
er, I may devote a portion of another work to this object, and 
vindicate at large the genius of Pope. At present I will merely 
so far discuss the matter as shall be necessary to justify my 

own text. 

Let us observe, then, that tedious and contradictory Preface, 
which evinces its author to be almost as incapable of writing pure 
^ndv.perspicuous prose, as he was, till Byron taught him,* of 

* In the poems published in 1820-1822, Mr. Wordsworth, departing com- 
pletely from his own rules, or rather no-rules, has profited by the muse of 
one who scorned him as a poet. For example : — 
" Fancy hath flung for me an airy bridge 
Across thy long, deep valley, furious Rhone ! 
Arch that here rests upon the granite ridge 
Of Monte Rosa — there, on frailer stone 



392 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

inditing tolerable verse. Passing over a passage where Mr. 
Wordsworth has dared to compare himself to Milton,* 
whom he calls (though in absolute contradiction of his own doc- 
trines) a "truly divine poet," we extract some lines which 
he has cited as indicative " of extreme activity of intellect and 
a corresponding feeling." 

'* A magazine 

Of sovereign juice is cellared in, 



Of secondary birth — the Jung-frau's cone ; 
And, from that arch down-looking on the vale, 
The aspect I behold of every zone ; 
A sea of foliage tossing with the gale. 
Blithe Autumn's purple crown, and Winter's icy mail ! " 



And: — 



" My spirit is the scene of such wild art 
As on Parnassus rules, when lightning flies, 
Visibly leading on the thunder's harmonies." 
Desultory Stanzas, appended to the Memorials of a Tour on the Continent. 

Though we do not exactly understand the phrase icild art, especially as ap- 
plied to a thunder-storm, no more than we can perceive how a crown and a 
coat of m,ail can be at the same time a sea,(a) yet the above twelve verses 
convince us of two things; first, — that Mr. Wordsworth is, though a 
maligner of all good poetry, really something of a poet ; secondly, — that he 
has by his own example, either proved the falsity of his own assertions, or 
shown that in his maturer day he was become a wiser or more prudent man, 
and had returned to the bosom of the poetic faith from which he had ridicu- 
lously apostatized. 

* " Awe-stricken as I am by contemplating the operations of the mind of 
ihis truly divine Poet, I scarcely dare venture to add, that * An Address to 
an Infant,' [!!] exhibits something of this communion and interchange," etc. 
If the Reader have the works of Mr. Wordsworth, I beg he will read this 
prattle to a baby, which is to be found at the tail of the first volume of the 
Boston edition of 1824. If he shall be able to get through the lullaby, with- 
out sleeping, he will acknowledge that the modesty of Mr. Wordsworth is, 
or was at that day, fully equal to his poetical fancy. 

(a) These absurdities let us very easily into the secret of Mr. Wordsworth's admira- 
tion of prosaic verse, and his boastful contempt of any thing like poetical embellishment. 
He despises, like another fox, what he is incapable of reaching without the risk of disas- 
ter. It is only when the Ballad-maker creeps along (he ground, that his humble spirit is 
ia any way mistress of herself. 



HIS MISREPRESENTATIONS. 393 

Liquor that will the siege maintain, 
Should Phoebus ne'er return again. 

" 'T is that, that gives the Poet rage, 
And thaws the gelly'd blood of Age ; 
Matures the Young, restores the Old, 
And makes the fainting Coward bold." 

The brother-rhymster goes on to quote thirty-five lines more, 
equally good, of this delicious poem, being, as he says, " una- 
ble to resist the pleasure of transcribing" it!* It is the 
same mean and vulgar description of vulgar trifles, connected 
by patches of meaner and more vulgar thought, which lan- 
guishes through his own somniferous ballads ; a skein of 
worsted thread unwound, and straightened out to its extent. 
Next follows the following, what shall we call it ? upon Alex- 
ander Pope. " The arts by which Pope, soon afterwards, 
contrived to procure to himself a more general and a higher 
reputation than perhaps any English Poet ever obtained dur- 
ing his lifetime, are known to the judicious. And as well 
known is it to them, that the undue exertion of these arts is 
the cause why Pope has for some time held a rank in litera- 
ture, to which, if he had not been seduced by an over-love of 
immediate popularity, he never could have descended." Now 
it is known to the judicious, that Pope owes all that just ce- 
lebrity to which he attained, — and which he will retain when 
Mr, Wordsworth lies, with his daisies and daffodils, forgotten, 
— all to his close imitation of the ancients. As in sculpture and 
architecture, so in poetry, art had reached its perfection when 
the English language was yet floating in its chaotic elements ; 
and now that this language has attained an excellence, which, 
can we but keep it from corruption, leaves nothing to be de- 
sired, English poetry can approximate to perfection only in 
copying the standard of antiquity; and it will maintain a dura- 

* OSroi (jtXv ouv oh XtXridciffiv, says IsocRATES, speaking of such delicate spir- 
its, or< Tourous \vr a. tv ou ff t Vy uv iyyvi a if rot v v y ^dv o u ff iv ovTSg. 
Panegyr. Edit. Glasg. 1778. 12mo. p. 3. 
50 



394 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

tion, precisely in proportion to its nearness to the same, or its 
distance therefrom.* Hence Pope, whose judgment in poetry 
has seldom if ever been surpassed, knew very well what to 
make the stepping-stone of his success, and, treading in the 
footsteps of BoiLEAU, carried the poetic diction of his native 
language to a height to which the colder Frenchman had 
never attained in his. If this art, this power of elevating 
what is mean or common in itself, by the grace, or strength, 
or harmony of diction, or by all three united, be not essential 
to poetry, nay, its very essence,| what then is the author of the 
Lutrin ? Mr. Wordsworth has cited Virgil, nor appears to 
despise him. Would Virgil be what he is, without his dic- 
tion .'* Would his pathos, never yet equalled, be alone suffi- 
cient to bear him above the heads of all competitors ? or is it 
not his majesty, his lovely polish, his bewitching grace of nar- 
rative, which carries us away with him irresistibly, and calls 
at times the tears into our eyes, with pure excess of love and 
admiration, as readily as his tenderness .'' But let us see, by 
two examples, what is " poetic diction," and whether it be, or, 
as Mr. Wordsworth would have it, be not, an essential part of 
poetry. We will take them from the first of satirists, though 



* That no narrow-minded person may affect to misunderstand me, I must 
be permitted distinctly to assert, that, when I speak of a standard in poetry, 
I only consider it such so far as it copies nature without degrading art, doing 
(to employ a familiar illustration) precisely as a skilful painter of portraits, 
when he embelUshes a likeness without at all diminishing the truth of the 
expression. The servile adoption of ancient fashions in literature, or the 
mixing up, with the images which belong to every age and people, of the ex- 
ploded fables of a barbarous and debasing mythology, I am as far from recom- 
mending as I should be for reviving that era of refinement on the stage, when 
the representatives of Hector strutted magnanimous in Gallic breeches. 

t Johnson says of Pope, that it would be very difficult to make any defi- 
nition of poetry in which his compositions should not be included. Had Pope 
flourished in the present century, he might have been in poetry what Byron 
was, though I am not so easily persuaded, that, had Byron lived in the time 
of Anne, he would have shown that perfect mastery of his art, which sets 
Pope, in correctness and finish, above all the poets of Great Britain. 



HIS MISREPRESENTATIONS. 395 

not the greatest of poets ; and they shall not be selected. 
They are those which occur to us at the moment of writing. 

Utqiie lacus sub er ant, ubi, quanquam diruta, scrvat 
Ignem Trojanum, et Vestam colit Alba minorem* 

Dimidio magicce resonant ubi Memnone chordm, 
Jltque vetus Thebe centum jacet obruta 'portis.'\ 

Is there any one so dead to beauty, that does not see that 
by this periphrasis, in either case, the poet has given dignity and 
interest to what in itself is nothing ? Substitute mere Alba for 
the first, and simple Thebes for the second, and the power of 
poetic diction is at once seen by contrast. J This circumlocu- 
tion, which in prose were affected and displeasing, presents us 
in verse a picture wherein we at once trace the consanguinity 
of poetry and painting, and acknowledge with delight the fea- 
tures common to them both. Yet poetry and prose are one, ac- 
cording to Mr. Wordsworth ! Hear him : — '^ I have previ- 
ously asserted, that a large portion of the language of every 
good poem can in no respect differ from that of good Prose. 
I will go further. I do not doubt that it may be safely affirmed, 
that there neither is, nor can be, any essential difference be- 
tween the language of prose and metrical composition." [! ! ] I 
wish I could continue the quotation ; for the Ballad-maker 
goes on to show, pretty plainly, that he does not know what 
he is talking about. (See page Ixxxii. of Vol. 1st of his Poetical 
Works, Boston edition.) 

To go back in the order of his pages, — he says, that hj the 
Idiot Boy and the Mad Mother, he had endeavoured to trace 
the maternal passion through many of its more subtile windings, 
and, " in the stanzas entitled we are seven, the perplexity 
and obscurity which in childhood attend our notion of death, 
or rather our utter inability to admit that notion." In both 

* Juv. iv. 60, 61. 
t7(i. XV. 5,6. 

t It is in such points as these, for instance, that we assume the poets of 
antiquity to be patterns for modern bards. 



396 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

these cases, one may stare at the presumption of this man of 
childish mind, who seems really to believe, that circumstances 
so common, as those he has there made matter of, have failed 
to be noticed by everybody. The elegance of the diction, we 
allow, is quite beyond the ability of anybody : — 
" Burr, burr — now Johnny's lips they burr, 

As loud as any mill, or near it; 

Meek as a lamb the Pony moves, 

And Johnny makes the noise he loves, 

And Betty listens, glad to hear it. 

" Away she hies to Susan Gale : 
Her Messenger 's in merry tune ; 
The Owlets hoot, the Owlets curr, 
And Johnny's lips they burr, burr, burr, — 
And on he goes beneath the Moon." 

The Idiot Boy [de nomine facti.] 

Upon my word, I do not know which be the more admira- 
ble, the sense or the style. 

Next we come to a most wilful, or ignorant, and in either 
case disgraceful, misrepresentation of Dryden and of Pope. 
" To what a low state knowledge of the most obvious and im- 
portant phenomena had sunk, is evident from the style in 
which Dryden has executed a description of Night in one of 
his Tragedies, and Pope his translation of the celebrated 
moonhght scene in the Iliad. A blind man, in the habit of 
attending accurately to the descriptions casually dropped from 
the lips of those around him, might easily depict these appear- 
ances with more truth. Dryden's lines are vague, bombastic, 
and senseless." Luckily, he quotes them : — 

" Cortes alone, in a nightgown. \ 

" AH tilings are hush'd as Nature's self lay dead : 
The mountains seem to nod their drowsy head : 
The little Birds in dreams their songs repeat, 
And sleeping Flowers beneath the Night-dew sweat : 
Even Lust and Envy sleep ; yet Love denies 
Rest to my soul, and Slumber to my eyes. 

" Dryden's Indian Emperor." 



HIS MISREPRESENTATIONS. 397 

Now, the description is not indeed minute, because the oc- 
casion did not require it to be so, and the conceit in the fourth 
line is rather absurd ; but that the passage, taken as a whole, 
is bombastic and senseless, I think simple and sensible Mr. 
Wordsworth would not easily be able to show.* He goes on 
to say : — "those of Pope, though he had Homer to guide 
him, are throughout false and contradictory. * * * they 
still retain their hold upon public estimation, — nay, there is 
not a passage of descriptive poetry which at this day finds so 
many and such ardent admirers. Strange to think of an En- 
thusiast, as may have been the case with thousands, reciting 
those verses under the cope of a moonlight sky, without hav- 
ing his raptures in the least disturbed by a suspicion of their 
absurdity." Those verses the candid critic has taken care not 
to quote ; but we will do it for him : — 

* Perhaps Mr. Wordsworth prefers his own descriptions of night. 
« Through all her courts 
The vacant city slept ; the busy winds, 
That keep no certain intervals of rest, 
Moved not ! Meanwhile the galaxtj displayed 
Herjires, that like mysterious pulses beat 
jlQff jv Vaudracour and Julia. (Vol. 1. p. 214.) 

This is neither vague, nor bomlastic, nor senseless. The poem whence it is 
taken occupies but ten pages, in 12mo ; yet, in the next page but one after that 
where the above inteUigible piece of simplicity occurs, we have the following 

lines : — 

" for no thought 

Uncharitable, no presumptuous rising 
Of hasty censure, modelled in the eclipse 
Of true domestic loyalty, did e'er find place 
Within his bosom." (P- 216.) 

Our limits will not admit of additional citations, but we would engage to fill, 
out of Mr. WoRDSWoTH's poems, a small volume with similar instances of 
fustian, and complete absurdity; nonsense so unintelhgible, that you should 
hardly know whether you were reading English or Dutch. Yet Mr. Words- 
WORTH is the poet of simplicity ! -and entertains a prodigious mdignation 
against the rant of Dryden, and other mighty names. 

Eheu, 
Q,uam temere in nosmet legem sancimus iniquam ! (a) ^ 

(a) HoRAT. Sat. i. 3. v. 66. * * 



398 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

" As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night ! 
O'er heav'n's clear azure spreads her sacred light, 
When not a breath disturbs the deep serene, 
And not a cloud o'ercasts the solemn scene ; 
Around her throne the vivid planets roll, 
And stars unnumber'd gild the glowing pole. 
O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed, 
And tip with silver ev'ry mountain's head ; 
Then shine the vales, the rocks in prospect rise, 
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies : 
The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight. 
Eye the blue vault, and bless the useful light." 

What is there false and contradictory in this description ? 
O, a note in Wakefield's pedantic and impertinent edition 
of the translated Iliad, told Mr. Wordsworth, that " Homer 
says nothing about the vales, which had better been omitted 
on this occasion." Moreover, the poet, in that exquisite coup- 
let, 

" O'er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed. 
And tip with silver ev'ry mountain's head," 

would seem to apply to the stars an effect which could only 
be produced by the moon, and which stars could not under 
any circumstance whatever give rise to.* And it is these two 
blemishes, which no man, whatever he may assert, can per- 
suade himself to think any thing but inadvertences, on the 

* An edition in 12mo is before me, printed in Edinburgh, for Alexander 
Donaldson, 1778, which reads, in the second line of he above distich, tipt. 
If this be the way that Pope wrote it, one of the error ; disap^jears at once ; 
for, on regarding shed as a participle, the couplet can apply no longer to the 
stars. The sense, then, will be such as will show a nicety of observation, 
only rivalled by the exquisite skill with which its results are laid down. 
The verdure of the trees, in such a scene as Homer paints, would yield in- 
deed a yellower [observe, not yellow] lustre, while the summits of the moun- 
tains would be tipt with silver. Note too the epithet dark, which envelopes 
the body of the object in shadow, while its top alone is seen illuminated 
by the rays of the planet. By Heaven ! the scene is before us ! such as 
we have viewed a thousand times. But, stay ! perhaps the moon does not 
shine in Mr. Wordsworth's country, as she does in Greece and in Amer- 
ica, and as she did in England when Pope looked on her horns. It is a great 
pity. 



HIS MISREPRESENTATIONS. 399 

part of a poet who certainly wanted nothing less than good 
sense and observation, it is these two unfortunate oversights 
which are to swallow up every beauty in the whole fourteen 
lines ! it is these which are to make the lines " throughout 
false and contradictory " ! 

As for the ahsurdihj^ we think it must be in the brain of the 
critic ; while the so many and so ardent admirers are likely to 
continue as many and as ardent as before. There is a softness, 
a mellowness, so to speak, about the whole scene in the trans- 
lation, that gives it the very coloring of moonlight, and it will so 
be felt by everybody. If you exclude the phrase " refulgent 
lamp of night," which is neither necessary, nor can enhance 
the beauty or the lustre of the object, the whole passage is 
perhaps such, as will not readily be again read in any poet.* 

There is no way so sure of seeing motes in the sunbeams, as 
to darken the room, and let the light find admittance only by a 
crevice. Such a preparation Mr. Wordsworth made, when 
he looked for floating specks in the noontide-radiance of Pope. 
By a like process he discovered that Thomson was more lucky 
than wise.! Accordingly, he admires the Castle of Indolence 



* The chief blemish in the piece is that which disfigures the whole of the 
translation, not only of the Iliad but of the Odyssey, to wit, the insertion of 
unnecessary epithets, merely to fill up the lines. But here too Pope " had 
Homer to guide him;" and when we consider the labor of translation, a 
labor, even upon the Iliad, so ungrateful, we can hardly blame the poet for 
adopting, to facilitate his task, an expedient for which he had the example, 
not only of his copy, to justify (I should rather say, to excuse) him, but that 
of all the ancient poets at times, and that of every critic who has framed his 
rules after their works. Vida, from whom Pope borrowed so much of the 
Essay on Criticism, directly sanctions it. In his original poems. Pope sel- 
dom, if ever, is guilty of this weakness. I do not believe that a single in- 
stance could be adduced from the Dunciad. 

t " Wonder is the natural product of Ignorance ; and as the soil was in 
such good condition [owing to the labors of Dryden and of Pope !] at the 
time of the publication of the Seasons, the crop was doubtless abundant. 
Neither individuals nor nations become corrupt all at once, nor are they en- 
lightened in a moment. Thomson was an inspired Poet, but he could not 



400 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

far more than the Seasons* ; and, as a proof of the correctness 
of his own ideas of poetry, he engages that, " in any well- 
used copy " of the latter poem, you shall find the book to open 
of itself at the episodes.| No doubt : and we can tell Mr. 
Wordsworth why. Because, thou 

" framer of a lay 

As soft as evening in thy favorite May," J 
the majority of the world cannot appreciate the graces of so 
elegant a poet, any more than the Rhymer of Rydal Mount 
can ; but Tho3ison is a celebrated poet ; therefore he must be 
read ; therefore he is read ; but, as the rude and stolid mind 
cannot penetrate his sense directly, nor catch at once the 
beauties of his song,§ it turns to what it may peruse without 

work miracles, etc. Having shewn [how, pray ?] that much of what his 
Biographer deemed genuine admiration must, in fact,_have been bUnd wonder- 
ment [!!], — how is the rest to be accounted for? — Thomson was fortunate 
in the very title of his poem, which seemed to bring it home to the prepared 
sympathies of every one (a) : in the next place, notwithstanding his high 
powers, he icrites a vicious style ; and his false ornaments are exactly of that 
kind which would he most likely to strike the undiscerning.'' Poet. Works, 
Vol. i. (Bost. cd.) " Supplement to the Preface," pp. xlix, 1. 

* " In the Castle of Indolence (of which Gray [no mean critic in matters 
of poetry] speaks so coldly) these characteristics, [" the true characteristics of 
Thomson's genius as an imaginative Poet;" doubtless, according to Mr. 
Wordsworth, what Gray would justly have termed blemishes, — being 
those flat and insipid passages which approximate the nearest to the rhyth- 
mical prose of the poet of Rydal Mount,] these characteristics were almost 
as conspicuously displayed, and in verse more harmonious and diction more 
pure [!!]. Yet that fine poem was neglected on its appearance, and is at this 
day the delight only of a Few ! [no doubt]." SuppL to the Pref p. li. 
t Supplement, &c. p. 1. * * 

t The simple Wordsworth, framer of a lay 
As soft as evening in his favorite May. 

EngL Bards and Sc. Reviewers. * * 
§ Mr. Wordsworth was quite of a different opinion. See, in this Appen- 
dix, the conclusion of the next but one preceding of the Author's notes. * * 

(a) So far from this is the fact, that uo title could have been more ill calculated to at- 
tract notice. 



HIS MISREPRESENTATIONS. 401 

tedium, and, by the aid of gratified concupiscence, gets through 
the drowsy fable of Musidora^ or, incited by that youthful 
vanity, which sees in the love-fortunes of another the pleasant 
shadows cast before its own, dances through the insipidities 
of " old Acasto's line." 

After Dryden, Pope, and Thomson, the reader will not be 
surprised to find Gray among our judge's poetical culprits. 
Yet was Gray the master of a lyre, which, if we read the 
strains of the exalted Theban without making any allowance 
for our necessarily imperfect appreciation of them, certainly 
rivals the poet's to whose key he tuned its chords.* 

* — " to illustrate the subject [' that some of the most interesting parts of 
the best poems will be found to be strictly the language of prose, when prose 
is well written,'] in a general manner, I will here adduce a short composition 
of Gray, who was at the head of those who, by their reasonings have attempt- 
edfto widen the space of separation betwixt Prose and Metrical composition, 
and was more than any other man curiously elaborate in the structure of 
his own poetic diction. 

" In vain to me the smiling mornings shine, 

And reddening Phcebus lifts his golden fire : 

The birds in vain their amorous descant join, 

Or cheerful fields resume their green attire. 

These ears, alas ! for other notes repine ; 

A different object do these eyes require ; 

My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine ; 

And in m.y breast the imperfect joys expire. 

Yet morning smiles the busy race to cheer, 

And new-born pleasure brings to happier men ; 

The fields to all their wonted tribute bear ; 

To warm their little loves the birds complain. 

/ fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear, 

And weep the more because I weep in vain." 
" It will easily be perceived, that the only part of this Sonnet which is of 
any value is the lines printed in Italics ; it is equally obvious [equally so, 
indeed], that, except in the rhyme, and in the use of the single word ' fruit- 
less ' for fruitlessly, which is so far a defect, the language of these lines does 
in no respect differ from that of prose ['!!]." Pref , &c. pp. Ixxx, Ixxxi. 

Did Mr. Wordsworth believe that his readers' heads were furnished with 
nething else but noses, and that he could lead them about as he pleased ? 
For the rest, we take the liberty to advise the grammatical critic that fruitless 
is not put ior fruitlessly, but, with a figurative meaning, qualifies the pronoun 
I, and " is so far " not " a defect." 
51 



402 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

We pass a most unjust, because one-sided, retrospect of 
Dr. Johnson, and come to this modest declaration of the Bal- 
lad-writer, — " that, if he were not persuaded that the Con- 
tents of his Volumes, and the Work to which they are sub- 
sidiary, evinced something of the ^ Vision and the Faculty 
divine'; and that, both in words and things, they will [would .^] 
operate in their degree, to extend the domain of sensibility 
[towards Ponies, Owls, and Idiots], for the delight [of chil- 
dren], the honor [of butterflies], and the benefit of human 
nature [in the nursery]," etc. etc., " he would not, if a wish 
could do it, save them from immediate destruction," etc.* 

We now return to the " Preface to the Lyrical Ballads." 
The writer cites these two stanzas : — 

" I put my hat upon my head 
And walked into the Strand, 
And there I met another man 
Whose hat was in his hand ; ' ' 

by Dr. Johnson ; and 

" These pretty Babes with hand in hand 
Went wandering up and down ; 
But never more they saw the Man 
Approaching from the Town ; " 

from the ''■Babes in the Wood." This latter, he says, "we 
admit as admirable, and the other as a fair example of the 
superlatively contemptible." Now, for my own part, I think 
the Doctor's the better of the two, as his is humorous, and, 
what it was meant to be, a capital burlesque parody, while 
the other is merely vulgar, and trivial. Let it not be supposed 
that we are no admirers of ballads. On the contrary, we will 
be bound to say, that Mr. Wordsworth cannot relish Percy's 
Reliques, where really not insipid, more than we have done : 
but we have not taught ourselves to run after simplicity till it 
shall have dragged us through all sorts of mire, and then to 
declare that our spattered boots and trowsers are elegant at- 
tire, and the fit costume of a man of taste. We do not see 

" Suppl. ^c. p. Ixvii. " ^ 



HIS MISREPRESENTATIONS. 403 

why the same ear cannot at one time relish Alice Gray^ and at 
another listen with delight to the Tiitto e sciolto of Bellini *; 
but to call Yankee Doodle true music, and to represent Mo- 
zart and Rossini as vitiators of harmony, is not in our ca- 
pacity, and is wholly Wordsworth. 

Lastly, comes the "Appendix" on "Poetic Diction." Dr. 
Johnson's elegant lines on the Ant and the Sluggard, are rep- 
resented as a "hubbub of words "! t and, after invidiously 
noticing an inadvertence of Cowper's, in calling a church- 
bell, "church-going bell," J as "an instance of the strange 

* We select for example these two pieces, because they are the most popu- 
lar, each in its kind, of the two sorts of music with which we mean to com- 
pare ordinary ballads (or Wordsioorthian verses, to use the ridiculous ex- 
pression of Blackwood's Magazine,) and refined poetry. Everybody can 
understand the former little song, and enjoy it more or less 3 but it requires 
some knowledge of music, and a delicate ear, to appreciate, or even to hear 
with patience, the composition of a skilful master, while, as that knowledge is 
increased, and this ear progressively refined, the enjoyment derived from it be- 
comes rapturous beyond any intellectual pleasure w^e know of. It is precisely 
so in poetry. All the world can read a ballad, but study and a nice taste are 
needed for the thorough relish of a well-wrought poem, and in both these 
qualifications we more than suspect Mr. Wordsworth to be wholly deficient. 

t We refer the reader to the passage (p. ex) ; for it is a fair, or, rather, a 
foul specimen of Mr. Wordsworth's disingenuousness, certainly of his ig- 
norance. We cannot here enter into an argument to show why in certain 
cases prose, especially the prose of Scripture, has the advantage over verse. 
Nor were it necessary ', for the reason is evident to any person but ordinarily 
well-read in criticism. 

X His critical acumen did not help him to discover, that, in the ode he had 
admiringly cited of Cotton's, the versifier, where he says, 

" And thaws the gelly'd blood of Age," 
forgot that jelly, though it may be melted, cannot be thawed. 

Be which as it may, it does not speak much for the strength of Mr. 
Wordsworth's argument, or for the generosity of his character, that he 
should have laid so much stress upon a mere oversight. That we have our- 
selves noticed, in passing, his own errors of a like sort, is because, as we 
have done with Petronius and Rubeta, we would attack him in derision 
with his own weapons, although to use them has soiled our hands and turned 
our stomach. 



404 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

abuses which Poets have introduced into their language, till 
they and their Readers take them as a matter of course, if 
they do not single them out expressly as objects of admira- 
tion," (an instance I will engage to cap with dozens out of any 
volume of his own poems,) the poet-critic quotes this stanza as 
beautiful J and " throughout admirably expressed " : — 

" Ye winds, that have made me your sport, 
Convey to this desolate shore 
Some cordial endearing report 
Of a land I must visit no more. 
My Friends, do they now and then send 
A wish or a thought after me ? 
O tell me I yet have a friend, 
Though a friend I am never to see." 

And here, being through the critical stuff of Mr. Words- 
worth, we conclude our remarks upon his prefaces by asking, 
first, of Mr. Wordsworth's readers, whether they do indeed 
think that vulgar objects cannot be described without vulgarity 
of thought or language ? * adducing as examples, among many 
of modern times alone, the hair of Mrs. Fermor in Pope, the 
choristers' desk of Boileau, and the parrot of Gressett; and 

* It was said of Virgil, that he even scatters dung about with dignity. 
Did Mr. Wordsworth ever hear of this commendation? Or does he think 
that dirt cannot be spread but with unclean fingers ? 

t The solemnity of the Rape of the Lock, of the Lutrin, of Ver-Vert, is 
indeed burlesque ; but that does not invalidate our position. Decency may 
be observed without the affectation of gravity, and the very piypose of orna- 
ment is to enliven and give interest to objects in themselves dull and petty. 
Let it be permitted me to observe, that the very scenes in the Dunciad which 
are reprobated, as mere scenes, by all critics, are more than half redeemed 
by their exquisite polish as poetry. 

" List'ning, delighted, to the jest obscene 
Of linkboys vile, and watermen unclean." 

These are two lines, which just occur to us, from one of those very scenes. 
Is there an ear familiar with good poetry, that does not perceive at once the 
perfection of the distich ? You may read it one thousand times, yet find 
nothing to abate your pleasure in it. But is it poetry ? Faith ! I do not 
know what poetry is, — no more than Boileau did, or Dr. Johnson. 



HIS MISREPRESENTATIONS. 405 

secondly, of Mr. Wordsworth himself, why, in abusing al- 
most all the poets that precede him in Great Britain, he ex- 
cepts from the category of poetical damnation the names of 
Shakspeare and Milton ? Was it because they are the only 
poets of whose genius there is no dispute in England ? But, 
alas for the Ballad-maker's argument ! are not those parts of 
Paradise Lost where Milton fails in his " poetic diction," are 
they not all, without exception, flat, dull, and prosaic ? And, 
inversely, is not every part that is admired, an instance of a 
happy application of the extreme of art ? Prove it otherwise, 
if Mr. Wordsworth, or his thousand admirers, can ! As for 
Shakspeare, it is his moral wisdom, his wit, his power of ex- 
pression, which, still more than his fidelity to nature,* have 
made him one of the first of poets ; and to not one of these 
qualities, be assured, has Mr. Wordsworth any claim. 

" J'ai ri," says the judgment of Boileau, — " j'ai ri de tout mon coeur de 
la bonne foi avec laquelle voire ami soutient une opinion aussi peu raisonna- 
ble que la sienne. Mais cela ne m'a point du tout surpris : ce n'est pas 
d'aujourd'hui que les plus mechans ouvrages ont trouve de sinceres protec- 
teurs, et que des opinidtres ont entrepris de combattre la raison k force 
ouverte. Et pour ne vous point citer ici d'exemples du commun, il n'est pas 
que vous n'ayez oiii parler du gout de cat Empereur [Caligula], qui prefera 
les ecrits d'un je ne S9ai quel poete aux ouvrages d'Homere, et qui ne voulait 
pas que tous les hommes ensemble, pendant pris de vingt siideSj eussent eu 
le sens commun." Dissert, sur la Joconde. 

And now, having shown up Mr. Wordsworth's ideas of his 
predecessors, it will be but fair to let him defend his asper- 
sions by means of his own verses ; for, surely, it was only by 
contrast with his own muse that the Westmoreland harper 
discovered their inferiority. 

* Yet Shakspeare had been ashamed to follow Nature in the trivialities, 
the details of her minor economy (so to speak), where, and where only, Mr. 
Wordsworth delights to observe her, — just as the boy of seven years will 
hang about the dishcloth of the cook, and thrust his nose into her jellybags, 
which the grown man never thinks of, and would deem it impertinent to 
describe and dilate upon to others, inasmuch as they are matters with which 
everybody is supposed to be sufficiently familiar. 



406 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

The reader has seen how beautifully the able disciple of 
Mr. Wordsworth describes her dolls.* Here is the original 
of the picture : — 

" Profuse in garniture of wooden cuts 
Strange and uncouth ; dire faces^ figures dire. 
Sharp-knee" d, sharp-elbow' d^ and lean-ankled too, 
With long and ghostly shanks, — forms which once seen 
Could never be forgotten." 

Book First of the Excursion (Vol. iv. p. 28) ; 

a poem which, according to the " kind of Prospectus " the 
author has thought proper to prefix to it, ought to be the most 
prodigious composition that the brain of man ever conceived. 
Favete Unguis: — 

" Urania, I shall need 

Thy guidance, or a greater Muse, if such 
Descend to earth or dwell in highest heaven ! 
For I must tread on shadoioy ground, must sink 
Deep, — and, aloft ascending, breathe in worlds 

To WHICH THE HEAVEN OF HEAVENS IS BUT A VEIL [!!]. 

Ml strength, — all terror, single or in bands, 
' That ever was put forth in personal form ; 

Jehovah — with his thunder, and the choir 

Of shouting Angels, and the empyreal thrones — 

I pass THE3I UNAL armed. Not Chaos, not 

The darkest pit of lowest Erebus, 

Nor aught of blinder vacancy — scooped out 

By help of dreams, can breed such fear and awe 

As fall upon us often when we look 

Into our Minds, into the Mind of Man, [! !] 

My haunt, and the main region of my Song." 

Preface to the Poem. (Vol. iv. p. ix.) 

A piece of information altogether new to us, and the only 
novelty that is to be found in the whole nine books, which are, 
most emphatically, the ridiculus mus to the monies of the Pre- 
face. By the by, it is well for Mr. Wordsworth that he is 
Mr. Wordsworth, or this presumptuous language held to- 
wards the Deity, which really startled us, and startles still, 

* See page 283. * * 



HIS POETRY. 407 

and which would have put tEschylus himself to the blush, 
had been stigmatized as blasphemous fustian. 

" Jehovah — with his thunder, and the choir 
Of shouting Angels, and the empyreal thrones — 

I PASS THEM UNALARMED." 

Good God ! Everybody has heard, that 

" Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." 

But we will set this aside, and consider the passage merely 
as presumptuous from vanity. What idea must William 
Wordsworth have of his own powers when he sets them 
above Milton's ? for it is to Milton he refers, when he says, 

" So prayed, more gaining than he asked, the Bard 
Holiest of Men. — Urania, I shall need," etc. (as above) : 

the author of Paradise Lost having opened his seventh Book 
with an address to this fancied Muse. But again, (to set 
even his vanity aside,) I know few boys, of healthy mind, that 
would not be ashamed to speak such nonsense as takes up 
the entire passage. Let us transpose it to the natural order. 

JVot ChaoSy nor the darkest pit of lowest Erebus, nor aught of 
blinder vacancy^ scooped out [elegant expression !] scooped out 
by help of dreams, can breed such fear and awe as fall upon us, 
often, ivhen we look into our minds, into the mind of man, [a most 
ridiculous proposition,] — a world to which the heaven of heavens 
is but a veil [absurd, senseless, bombastic, and indecent]. 
Therefore / must tread on ground which is made of shadows 
[or, shady : which does the poet mean .''], must sink deep into 
these same shadoios, and then mount aloft till I get into the mind 
of man, which is the place I haunt and the country I chiefly sing 
about, or in. But devil a bit am I daunted ; no ! All strength, 
all terror, single or in bands, that ever was put forth in personal 
form, etc., etc., I pass them unalarmed. Why should I be 
alarmed, I, who have the soul of Milton, and can mioralize 
upon a jackass ? 



408 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

His boat* talks more sense to Mr. Wordsworth than any 
critic I have yet read : — 

" Out — out — and, like a brooding hen, 
Beside your sooty hearth-stone cower ; " 

(brooding hens, be it observed parenthetically, have a great 
fancy for hearth-stones, especially when sooty ;) 

'' Beside your sooty hearth-stone cower ; 
Go, creep along the dirt, and pick 
Your icay loith your good walking-stick, 
Just three good miles an hour.' ' 

This is exactly the Poet, and it is astonishing to see how 
even " a little boat," after having accommodated his imag- 
inary bottom for a little while in the air, can catch its master's 
polished and delightful manner. This, we say, is exactly the 
Poet. For example : — 

" In March, December, and in July 
'T is all the same with Harry Gill ; 
The neighbours tell, and tell you truly, 
His teeth they chatter, chatter still. 
At night, at morning, and at noon, 
'T is all the same with Harry Gill ; 
Beneath the sun, beneath the moon, 
His teeth they chatter, chatter still ! " 

Goody Blake and Harry Gill (Vol. ii. p. 24). 

Where, moreover, a remarkable instance of great poetic power 
is to be observed in the bold license of rhyming July with 
truly. That the reader might catch the sound at once, we 
therefore accented July as the poet, no doubt, meant to have 
it read. 

* " There 's something in a flying horse, 
And something in a huge balloon ; 
But through the clouds / HI never float, 
Until I have a little boat, 
Whose shape is like the crescent moon." 

Vol. ii. p. 117. Prologue to Peter Bell} 

that famous story of a little ass, which stood four days in as sweet a pasture 
as was ever seen, even by Dapple, '^ nor ever once did break his fast," being 
engaged in watching his drowned master, where he stuck in a pond with his 
head uppermost. 



HIS POETRY. 409 

And again, in another kind of rhyme, (for we shall do more 
for him than he did for Pope, and give ample specimens of 
his powers) : — 

" O blithe New-comer ! I have heard, 
I hear thee and rejoice : 
O Cuckoo ! shall I call thee Bird, 
Or but a icandering Voice? " 

To the Cuckoo (Vol. ii. p. 6). 

Can any thing be finer ? " O cuckoo ! " How tender ! how 
affectionate ! how coaxing ! " O cuckoo ! " Lusingando, as 
musicians say. 

" O Cuckoo ! shall I call thee Bird ? " 
The devil ! how could the cuckoo resist him ? " Shall I call 
thee Bird ? " Bless thij jive wits ! * 

" Or but a wandering Voice ? " 
There, there, there, is perfection ! there is simplicity ! there 

is nature ! 

" Or but a wandering Voice? " 

Quid mirandum homini coelo divinitus aeque 
Concessum ! Mortale genus tua numina sentit, 
Quisquis es ille, Deus certe ! qui pectora vatum 
Incolis, afflatasque rapis super aethera mentes.t 
No ! nothing can be finer ! It is only the same author that 
can at all rival it : — 

<< nightingale ! thou surely art 
A creature of a fiery heart : — 
These notes of thine — they pierce and pierce ; 
Tumultuous harmony and fierce ! " 
Could the merest child, — could John Waters himself, — Pe- 
TRONius's John m^iers, — could he have perpetrated more 
wretched foolery ? Were my youngest boy, who is yet but 
five, to pen such stanzas, I believe I should flagellate him, 
were it only to set in operation a music more natural and more 
reasonable. Let us taste again the delicious morsel ; — 

* K. Lear. A. iii. Sc. 4. * * t Vid^e Poet. i. 545. 

52 



410 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 

" O Wordsworth, O ! thou surely art 
A creature of a fiery heart : — 
These notes of thine — they pierce and pierce ; 
Tumultuous harmony and fierce ! " 

Most fit was this great poet, this second Milton, to revive 
the legend of the Prioress's Tale in Chaucer.* 

" This Abbot, for he was a holy man, 
As all monks are or surely ought to be, 
In supplication to the Child began. 
Thus saying, ' O dear Child ! J summon thee. 
In virtue of the holy Trinity, 
Tell me the cause why dost thou sing this hymn, 
Since that thy throat is cut, as it doth seem.' 

" ' My throat is cut unto the bone, I trow,' 
Said this young Child, < and by the law of kind 
I should have died, yea, many hours ago; 
But Jesus Christ, as in the books you find, 
Will that his glory last, and be in mind. 
And, for the worship of his Mother dear, 
Yet I may sing, O Alma! loud and clear.' " 

With children for his judges, Mr. Wordsworth would be 
the first of poets. He is peculiarly the child's versifier. One 
might say of his innocent rhymes, in his own felicitous lan- 
guage, 

" That way look, my infant, lo ! 
What a pretty baby show ! " 

{The Kitten, 8fC. p. 310 of Vol. i.) 

Some of his little ballads being not unmusical, and even 
graced at intervals with a touching simplicity, we are induced 
to read on, but, when we come to the end, behold, they turn 
out to be merely nothing, and we wonder at the premature 
dotage which could induce a man to void such stuff upon the 
public, imagining, that what seemed of consequence to himself 

^ In his own mind Mr. Wordsworth has nothing, and he is incapable of 
managing material of an elevated nature found elsewhere. See how mis- 
erably he fails in the White Doe of Rylstone, where a tolerably good poet would, 
from the same materials, have woven a most touching tale. 



HIS POETRY. 411 

must necessarily be so to all others. See " The Beggars," * 
(Vol. ii. p. 48), which begins with this characteristic stanza : — 
" She had a tall Man's height, or more ; 
No bonnet screen'd her from the heat ; 
A long drab-colored Cloak she wore, 
A Mantle reaching to her feet : 
What other dress she had I could not know ; 
Only she loore a Citp that %oas as ichite as snow." 

We could go on adding proof to proof of our assertions. 
The only difficulty is which to select from the midst of the 
monstrous heap. Like Philostratus on the parts of his mis- 
tress, — Tuvi^ en a Lv i a M ; aal {.ii]v ixslva ay^dvova. Enslvoig db) 
T)]V hqIulv ; v.ai fisv ar&sXy.st, (.is Tavia.] 

We have now come to the end of the ^' Poetical Works of 
William Wordsworth," and we observe, in conclusion, that, to 
regard him no longer as a poet, but simply as an author, the 
calibre of his mind may be easily measured in the Essaij on 
Epitaphs, which his enormous vanity induced him to republish 
at the close of the fourth volume ; a tame piece of inanity, 
without even the graces of style which might cover, for a first 
reading, a want of matter. It conveys to me, as his poems 
also do, the impression of a mind weak and contracted, but, 
saving in the article of literary envy, not unamiable. 

*■ This ballad we cite, as an instance of the trifling character of most of Mr. 
Wordsworth's compositions, not of that charming simplicity which occa- 
sionally dots them, and of which there is an example in this same volume, 

viz. 

" Three years she grew in sun and shower, 
Then Nature said, e<c." p. 15. 
t Epist. Ixv. 



INDEX 



[the numbers refer to text and comment, indiscriminately. * *] 



Abbess, the, recognises her ass in Rubeta 

•- , pledges the hero .... 

, inspired with prophetic fervor - 

— , lovely trait of modesty in 

Acclamation of the newsmen, compared to a scene in Milton's 

— . shower in amarket- 

Adam, created double ..... 

, of neither sex . . . ^ . 

's vocal flowers . . . . ^ 

and Eve, at dinner ..... 

Adams (Mr. John Quincy) , . . . 

Adder-stone, the ...... 

Address, Petronius's brief, awful effects of, in Hell 
Adieu, pathetic, of the hero .... 

abbess .... 

Adieu, " to fame and light," Rubeta's sad 

Adventure of the window ..... 



jars 
cask 



Affliction, the test of character .... 

Alexander and Apelles ..... 

Alligators and crocodiles .... 

Alms-begging, literary, or the Life of Joseph Brant 4 

Amplification, beautiful instance of, from Bianca Visconti 
Androgyni, the ...... 

Anecdote of Bancker-St., in Manhattan 

Angels do not propagate their kind 

Angelo (Michael) and the walls of the Sistine Chapel 

Ants on a window-sill, a simile 

Anthon (Rev. Henry) ..... 

Aphides, extraordinary fecundity of . . . 

Apostrophe, (Rubeta's) to his Muse 

the nine Muses 

Aristeas of Proconnesus ; what he could do with his soul 
Arms of the hero of the Vision 

Arrival of the triumphal procession before the abbess 
Ass, the abbess's, plays Gulliver on the conflagration . 



Page Verso 

53, 540 

64, 20 

85, 155 

175, 430 
Hell 17, 199 
town 19, 230 

70, 80 

71, 80 
108, 493 
207, 733 
385, 996 
229, 84 
213, 773 

176, 438 
178, 466 
145, 170 

99, 366 

118, 656 

137, 55 

117, 615 

296, 745 
270, 609 
150, 178 
356, 936 

72, 82 
251, 358 

71, 80 
186, 532 

55, 580 

297, 758 

72, 85 
26, 313 
98, 356 

177, 458 
193, 566 
173, 402 

59, 650 



414 



INDEX. 



Bailey (Mr. John) 's " buskins of a day " 

Banians, queen of the ; her peculiar capacity 

Baptism in the middle ages, .... 

Battle between Sir Dumpling and the ass 

Bay of New York ..... 

Beauty, the Sleeping, cause of the enchantment of 
Benjamin (Mr. Park) ..... 

Bird (Dr ) . 

Birth of RuBETA, with the ceremonies observed thereat 

Birth-place, the hero's ..... 

Bitches' milk, use of ..... 

Black Cato ...... 

Blasphemy, in men of acknowledged piety 

BoiLEAU, cause of his aversion to gallantry in writing 

BoiLEAU, Drvden, and Pope, as satirists 

BoiTEusE recounts the story of her misfortune 

BouFFiE and Culasse ; their murmurs 

" Bower on College-green," the .... 

Bowles (Miss Caroline) 's Birthday 

Boy at marbles, a simile ..... 

Braces, the hero's, appropriated by Fretille 

Broomstick, history of a . 

Brownlee, (Rev. Dr.) .... 

Bruno and Molcus at the visionary conflagration 

and RuBETA in personal collision 

's picture and the green veil 

Bulwer (Mr. Edioard Lytton) 's rhymes 

, his obscurity, of a celestial sort. His Athens 

Dvchess de la VaJlitre 

Byron as a satirist. His Bards and Revitwers 

Camp-meetings ...... 

Canonization of Rubeta ..... 

Cant, her opening address to the starving apprentice 

instructs him in his future office 

Capers, justified by the example of Aristippus 

Caper, marvellous, cut hy Rubeta 

Carlyle (Mr. Thomas) .... 

Catalogue of the Black Nuns .... 

Cause of the grandeur of the poetry in the Tales and Sketches 

Celestial beings ; their facility of metamorphosis 

Certain expressions, how to be to be translated 

Cevalim, used anciently by the Jewish women 

C. F. M., A Poetical Epistle to ... 

Chambers of the vestals ..... 

Channing (Rev. Dr.) ..... 

Charmed sleep of the infant Rubeta 



Page Verse 

353, 935 

80, 123 

225, 41 

58, 635 

39, 443 

231, 93 

246, 913 

346, 912 

224, 37 

220, 14 
2.18, 202 

22, 276 

161, 254 
80, 128 

307, 799 

102, 410 

173, 392 

178, 460 

283, 707 

119, 660 

163, 266 

37, 417 

297, 759 

57, 610 

195, 583 

29, 334 
10, 87 

128, 746 

360, 951 

307, 799 

270, 607 

87, 188 

258, 400 

265, 552 

163, 259 

162, 259 
368, 961 

30, 343 

221, 17 
234, 159 
215, 790 
275, 653 
341, 901 

92, 258 

297, 760 

231, 91 



INDEX. 



415 



Chastity, Rubeta's "nursing cares for" 

Cheops' pyramid, how built .... 

Chickens gathering round a housewife, a simile 

Child (Mrs.) ...... 

Christina, the, of the Tales and Sketches ; who she really was, 

assumes the charge of the youthful hero's education 

Civis, assisted to expectorate by Petronius 

Claims, the hero's, to the aid of certain goddesses 

Clarke (Mr. Macdonald) , wicked conduct of Petronius towards 

Cleopatra, a midwife ..... 

Clystera crowns the hero with the pewter vase 

appropriates the hero's beaver 

; what she gave the hero on parting with him 

" Cock," a word disused ia America 

Columbia College in New York .... 

Confessions of a Poet, tendency of the . . 

Confusion, the sisters', at the hero's accident 

Consolation, the nuns', to the hero in his calamity : 

Cook, RuBETA released from peril by Bruno's 

Cook-maids and Blackfish, the poet of . 

Cooper (Mr. J. Fennimore) and the journalists 

CopRONES and Kitty, love-passage between 

Crabbe; character of his poems .... 

has no claims to be entitled the English Juvenal 

; his Village ..... 

Credulity and Suspicion go hand in hand 

Criticism, at the present day, diverted from its proper channel 

Ctesias ; his account of a singular race in India 

Cyr (St.), the abbess of, her heroic self-mutilation 

Delicate situation, a .... . 

Demosthenes' adjuration, and that of Rubeta 
Departure of the steamer with the destined newsman . 
Description of a child at the breast .... 

of a range of dwellings in the Five Points 

of the abbess's ass .... 

of the cave of the convent 

of Cant and Hypocrisy in masquerade 

Devil, the, gallops over the prostrate hero 
Dinner-giving, to public men, an ancient and classical usage 
Disappointment, the hero's, on his return to Manhattan 
Disaster to the hero's breeches .... 

, how remedied by the abbess 

Distress, the hero's, in a garret, .... 

St. Cholera's, and the hero's suspicions 

Domicile, Rubeta's "doorless" .... 
Downing (Major) 's little cousin ... 



Page Verse 

289, 714 

79, 121 
55, 576 

303, 791 
240, 222 
240, 222 
330, 898 
255, 422 

304, 791 
67, 49 

169, 326 

109, 335 

179, 482 

188, 544 

338, 900 

80, 123 
105, 461 
117, 626 
196, 611 
330, 900 
347, 918 
214, 781 

306, 799 

307, 799 
307, 799 
160, 246 
187, 532 

75, 102 

69, 61 

115, 579 

82, 133 

248, 314 

97, 329 

250, 354 

57, 620 

134, 17 

257, 443 

138, 75 

190, 555 

190, 555 

174, 419 

175, 426 
252, 370 
133, 3 
145, 170 
294, 736 



416 



INDEX. 



Dream, the abbess's ..... 
DuER (Mr. William) , . . . : 

DuLNESs, in despair at the absence of Rubeta 

: her solemn oath .... 

'^ why termed *' goddess of the wildered eye " ? 

seeks " her darling sheets," where ? 

informs Impudence of her son's maturity 

Dumpling, the ecclesiastical .... 

DuNSTAN (St.) 's victory over the Devil 

DwiGHT (Mr.), no friend to the old lady of Babylon 

Effects of the hero's tenderness upon his drawers 
Egyptians, the, in the time of Herodotus 
Elegant extract from the first of American historians 

'. from the Letter on Animal Magnetism 

Element, true, of the author of the Tales and Sketches 

Ellet (Mrs. £. F.), poem by 

Entrance of the disguised deities into the garret 

'< Envy, smarting at a woman's fire " 

Ethics, modern, (Rubeta's) .... 

Eugene (Prince) and Rubeta, in parallel 

Eulogium of water, Rubeta's .... 

Explanation of the name Rubeta . . , 

Fairies, in modern times .... 

Father Richards ..... 

Fielding and Lady Blessington, at the tribunal of Petronius 

Fine arts, Rubeta on the . . . 

First steps of the infant hero towards the state of a rational being 

Fish-stories, as old as Ctesias .... 

Flies, on a chill autumnal morning; a comparison 

Foetal state, the hero twenty-seven months in a . 

Force of great virtue, eminent instance of the 

Formosa, story of the women of . 

Fountain of grief, wonderful discharge from the * 

Fretille repairs the hero's braces 

F. fV.S., "Elegy" by .... . 

" Gallantries of Paradise " . . . , 

Garters, acquisition of the vestal .... 
Generosity of the hero, on parting with the sisters 

to the giant Doolan 

Genius, great, " never stoops to the embellishment of trifles ' 
Giant of the portal, the ..... 

Gifford, as a satirist ..... 
" Grand Absurd," the, arrives at maturity 
Grandeur, solemn, of the triumphal procession 



Page ^ 


Verse 


53, 


545 


149, 


174 


11, 


120 


13, 


137 


13, 


147 


200, 


648 


242, 


238 


57, 


611 


118, 


650 


54, 


559 


. 188, 


542 


95, 


302 


77, 


118 


198, 


628 


163, 


260 


353, 


934 


256, 


440 


292, 


725 


. 292, 


727 


296, 


745 


207, 


733 


264, 


537 


8, 


66 


35, 


398 


s 309, 


801 


295, 


741 


g 237, 


184 


74, 


98 


204, 


703 


224, 


37 


. 262, 


520 


80, 


125 


. 188, 


542 


. 116, 


594 


335, 


900 


208, 


735 


175, 


426 


. 181, 


505 


135, 


41 


186, 


532 


127, 


755 


307, 


799 


242, 


235 


173, 


384 



INDEX. 



417 



Gregory of Nyssa's argument on incorporeal propagation 
Griffard, the, over his prey .... 

Habitation in the Five Points, nature of a 

Hale (Mr. David) 's darling . • . 

Hancock (" Madam ") and " her husband's gout " 

Hawks (Rev. Dr.) . . . • ' 

Heinecken ...••• 

Hell ; the hero visits it, entranced 

Heraldic knowledge of Rubeta 

Herbert (Mr. H. JV.) 

Herdsman's child, story of the . 

Hero, the, betrayed into an oath, 

devotes himself to the service of his visitors 

Historical romance, writers of . 
Hoffman (Mr. Charles F.) . 



Holland (Lord) . . • • • 

How to make the most of a calamity 

Hubbub in the convention . . • • 

Hughes (Mr. Ball) 's statue of Alexander Hamilton 

Humanity, singular instance of the hero's . 

Hunt (Mr. Leigh) 's Captain Sword and Captain Pen 

Hytena, the, notion with regard to, in the time of Pliny 

Hypatia, who abandoned Cupid for Minerva . 

Immortality and saintship promised to the hero 
Impudence ; two deities of the name 

takes the infant hero to Mount Ida 

her darling votary 



— beside the pallet of her step-niece 

— substitutes the infant god for the herdsman's child 

— appears to the divine changeling 

— her colloquy with the young hero 
takes her flight from the steamer 



whereabouts she nestled in Philadelphia 

Inconvenience of breeches, and superiority of philabegs 
Infantile graces of the hero 
Inklings of Adventure, hj Mr. W11.1.IS . 
Instance of desperate resolution 
Institution of female rnonasticism, whence derived 
Interchange of civilities, between the hero and the green Father 
Interruption which the hero met, in his descent to the cavern 
Inventor of Animal Magnetism, the true 
Inventory of the hero's wardrobe . . • • 

Invocation of Hypocrisy and Cant, the hero's 
Jon, tragedy of, • • • • • * 

Iris claps her rainbow on the hero's eye . . ^ 

53 



Page Verse 


71, 


80 


119, 


674 


. 251, 


358 


52, 


528 


279, 


685 


297, 


760 


237, 


191 


154, 


230 


259, 


479 


346, 


912 


231, 


97 


141, 


112 


271, 


612 


. 346, 


912 


147, 


174 


345, 


912 


311, 


811 


116, 


610 


200, 


653 


295, 


734 


120, 


690 


. 284, 


708 


72, 


83 


209, 


739 


88, 


205 


225, 


48 


. 226, 


58 


229, 


81 


232, 


115 


lild 233, 


141 


. 243, 


253 


244, 


264 


. 250, 


346 


250, 


353 


. 107, 


488 


38, 


429 


195, 


599 


101, 


396 


. 123, 


725 


her 182, 


514 


153, 


205 


. 231, 


93 


247, 


304 


. 254, 


411 


364 


953 


. 118, 


638 



418 



INDEX. 



Irving (Mr. Washington) 's ^^v/orn-oui hose'' 

's distinguishing excellences 

^ absurd adulation of reviewers towards 

's proper rank as a writer 

and Goldsmith 



" Beauties " of 



Issue of the adventure of the jars, with the philosophy of the hero 

Jerom (St.) 's skull ..... 

Journal, a certain, anatomized .... 

Journal des Debats, critiq^ie of the, on Mr. Bulwer's Duchess 
Joy and surprise, the hero's, over the newspaper 
Juvenal, no real parallel for, in English or in French 

Kemble (Miss Frances) and Petronius 
Kingfish, greediness of the .... 

Kiss, Margaret's last, in Confessions of a Poet 
Knickerbocker Magazine, the .... 

Lecture, Rubeta's curious, at the Stuyvcsant Institute 
Liberality, Rubeta's ..... 
Liver, the, anciently reputed the seat of love 
Locke (Mr. R. Adams) . • . . . 

— — — his ingenius fiction of the Moon 

his justice to Mr. Willis 

" Love of ladies and satiric pique," Rubeta's, whence derived 

Loves of the vipers and congers, from Achilles Tatius 

' SciPio and Christina .... 

Mackenzie {Henry), and his novels 

Magazines, Pope on ..... 

Magazine, American Monthly .... 

Magnetizers ; useful purposes to which to put them 
Mares, the, of Portugal, fable of 

Margaret, Countess of Holland ; her miraculous childbed 
Margites ...... 

Martyr, what makes the 
Mask, for obliquity of vision, a . 
Master-stroke in the Mysterious Bridal 
Matthias darkens the fame of Herodotus 

, how sold ? . 

Matthias in Hell, a barbecue 

Memnon's statue 

Men and tadpoles 

Merchant-princes, " paper-crowned" 

Metamorphosis of the turnips 

Mind, a substitute for body-linen 

Mire {Md'lle) and the heir of the D. de Penthievre 



Pago Verse 

184, 533 

185, 533 

186, 533 

187, 533 
348, 918 
379, 980 
122, 702 

295, 741 

28(3, 712 

361, 951 

249, 328 

307, 799 

347, 917 

331, 900 

196, 601 

373, 970 

266, 567 

292, 730 

114, 573 

299, 768 

37, 420 

360, 944 

239, 215 

230, 90 

232, 124 

307, 799 

345, 908 

344, 908 

236, 181 

72, 87 
68, 59 

386, 1014 

109, 515 

238, 196 

143, 136 

29, 328 

281, 693 

155, 236 

312, 821 

73, 93 
41, 447 

141, 114 

111, 527 

386, 1010 



INDEX. 



419 



Mirror, the JVew York ...... 

Mischievous trick of a novice, with its awful consequence 

MiTCHKLL (Mr. T.) 's tTa.ns\a,tion of Aristophanes 

Modern lagos ...... 

Modesty of E-ubeta, compared with that of Ulysses 
Mohammed's breeches ..... 

Monk (Maria), her book . . . . . 

not written by herself 

and Rue eta, rival authors . . . . 

disappears ...... 

Moiikbarns of hlhliogidiphy , the . . . . 

Moonlight scene on a lake ..... 
Moore (".^nacreon"), the American . . . . 

Moore (Mr. Clement C) . . . . . 

Moral worth, the, of famous persons, disparaged by little minds 
Musings — by Flaccus in Town . . . . 

Mylitta, the Assyrian Venus .... 

Naked licentiousness of Manhattan . . . . 

Nakedness of man, the primitive, envied by Rubeta 
Nastiness, Rubeta's secret joy . . . . . 

Nazarites and Nazarenes ..... 

Newsmen, a distinctive quality of ... . 

the, prepare for the celebration of their mystic rites 

Night-scene, in and out of a French stage-coach 

in the herdsman's cottage . . , 

NoAH (Mr. M.M.) 

Noise made by the abbess's ass ; its effect upon the foetuses 

JVoiolans, the, by Mr. Banim 

Nuns, the, let down their tails ..... 

; what they gave the hero at parting with him 

Nursery, secrets of the ...... 

Object of the Tales and Sketches 
Obsequies of an old straw mattress . 
O'CoNNELL (Mr. Daniel) 
Occupation of the sisterhood 
Omen of the Green Father 
Omnipotence, human, 
Order of the triumphal procession 
Ornaments of Manhattan . 
OsBORN (Mr. Laughton) 
Otranto, Castle of . 
Out of the frying-pan into the fire 
Owen (Mr. Robert) 's nose 



Parentage, true, of the hero of the Vision 

Farody of the style of Mrs. Hemans ; from the Life of Jeremy Levis 126 



Page 


Verse 


5, 


32 


104, 


445 


271, 


612 


159, 


246 


105, 


459 


26, 


309 


43, 


458 


56, 


593 


49, 


505 


59, 


644 


257, 


455 


203, 


691 


343, 


904 


147, 


174 


206, 


729 


338, 


902 


77, 


117 


42, 


448 


108, 


493 


50, 


515 


207, 


732 


199, 


640 


214, 


789 


201, 


665 


232, 


113 


298, 


765 


58, 


627 


290, 


719 


33, 


378 


180, 


492 


238, 


194 


278, 


681 


56, 


597 


302, 


791 


30, 


340 


84, 


141 


146, 


170 


169, 


338 


39, 


445 


318, 


844 


90, 


216 


114, 


560 


253, 


381 


223, 


23 


126, 


746 



420 



INDEX. 



Partiality, Byron on ..... 

Pat's emergence, on the opening of the scuttle 

■- eye, compared to a star seen through a comet 

Patent of a grant of arms, Royal Jlchievcrnent 
Patronage, literary . • . . . 

Peanut, the last ..... 

Peril, bodily, the hero's, among the Brunonians? 

-, , from the Cyclops ; averted by Boiteuse 

Petronius, — his amiable vacillancy . , . . 

-. , figured as a peacock . • . 

, " big- mouthed " ; why ? . 

-^ -, his pride in the Convention . 

prodigious speech 

-, , " the amphibolous colonel " 

-, why "classic".'' .... 

_ " proves a coxcomb through his father's worth 

: -, «' critic hebdomadal " ... 

^^ directs our operas " .... 

. J director of magazines, and literary counsellor to misses 

., J " in love, and hatred, violent yet weak " 

J satirized for his " boyish heart and girlish skull 

-,. , the Maecenas of Manhattan 

sticks at nothing " where his friends have part ' 

—< , his foster-child .... 

, maliciousness .... 

and Dk Witt Clinton 

General Jackson 



, his candor .... 

, Jove's bastard .... 

, his elegant taste for tragedies 

, his reverence of British opinion 

J his regard for popular reputation in letters 

, his grandiloquence, specimen of . 

, his wit .... 

, his venality .... 

, his apology for being nasty 

, " a new Palaemon, risen in the West " 

, " grammatical " 

and Queen Victoria 



fosters sectional prejudices 

, his fate " by singing-girls " 

Pheron, his marvellous eyewater 

burns all the faithless women in his kingdom 

Philosophical situation, a ... 

Philostratus' fanciful account of the Memnon 
Philpot, Toby .... 

Pig's brains, use of . • • • • 



Page Verse 

343, 906 

144, 156 

144, 164 

192, 566 

311, 811 

183, 520 

196, 607 

129, 775 

14, 158 

15, 161 
210, 751 
210, 753 
210, 757 
213, 773 

300, 773 

301, 780 

301, 781 

302, 785 
304, 795 
329, 888 
329, 891 
329, 897 
343, 906 
343, 908 
347, 917 

350, 918 

351, 918 

351, 924 

352, 931 
352, 934 

359, 943 

360, 950 

370, 963 

371, 963 
371, 966 
377, 977 
381, 985 

383, 994 

384, 995 

385, 996 

386, 1009 

76, 115 

77, 115 
106, 477 
312, 821 

5, 31 

838, 20g 



INDEX. 



421 



Pindar and Rubeta ..... 

Pit, the hero descends into the, with the loss of his tail 

Poetic name, the hero's, foretold him 

Poetrij, the New York Book of ... 

Poets-laureate ..... 

Pope, as compared with the poets of antiquity 

Prayer to Venus, the hero's 

Precocity of genius, the strongest instance of, on record, 

Preparations for the triumph, the 

Prescott (Mr. Win. H.) .... 

Price (Mr. Joseph) .... 

Priscillian's doctrine with regard to oaths . 

Prison in Manhattan, the new 

Profanity in some men piety in others 

Propagation of the hero, extraordinary time and labor in the 

Prophecy, the mother-nun's to the hero . 

Hypocrisy's, to the distressed apprentice . 

Puberty, the hero's late .... 
Puppies, a litter of .... . 

Purgatory, the nuns' .... 

Putain's excessive modesty . . . • . 

delicacy in releasing the hero from his peculiar situation 

pins up the hero's breeches .... 

Pyrrhus's great toe .... 

Quixote, Don, surpassed .... 

Rachel's " twin garters and her tinkling chain" 
Reese (Dr. David M.) piddles any way, 
Relic of the Lady Margaret Bellenden 
Romans unbreeched ..... 
Room of the spinners .... 

Review J JV. American ..... 

, American Quarterly 

, J\''ew York ...... 

Rooster i etymology of the word and confined application 
Rout of the ten thousand ..... 

Rozinante and Rubeta, in poetical juxtaposition 
Rubeta, " High-Priest of Hypocrites and King of Fools " . 

> flogg'd by Fate, clears the five-barr'd gate of Prudence 

, distinguished for chastity ... 

— —- arrives at the Hall ..... 
— — — — , his solemn entrance, .... 

is exalted, at the expense of his breeches . 

, compared to a fire-engine .... 

, his philanthropy . . - 

--— > 1 — ingenious scheme to do away with slavery 



Page Versa 

107, 481 

151, 186 

263, 530 

146, 174 

311, 813 
307, 799 
111, 531 
237, 191 
168, 304 
359, 943 
299, 767 
269, 585 
250, 355 
113, 553 
224, 35 

86, 165 

262, 528 

242, 235 

10, 96 

100, 376 

66, 39 

113, 550 

165, 279 

312, 819 

161, 255 

275, 653 

50, 514 

79, 118 

107, 492 

99, 366 

348, 918 

229, 82 

365, 953 

188, 544 

139, 82 

209, 743 

3, 6 

4, 11 
9, 80 

17, 191 

17, 203 

18, 214 

19, 237 
22, 269 
22, 273 



42^^ 



INDEX. 



RuBETA, his classical knowledge 

equity, and delicacy of moral distinction 

, compared to Coriolanus 

, his bewitching piety .... 

gives Black Cato an opportunity of evincing his gratitude 25, 

prefers death to obscurity .... 

desires to be made a nun 

, the most learned of AaiERicANS 

, mistaken for a saint 

, compares himself to Israel in the Red Sea 

, his hereditary broomstick 

mouth ...... 

gods ..... 

, compared to Cyrus ..... 

, his modesty on a certain occasion, how to be rewarded 

, and the beetle ..... 

and Archimedes .... 

, his savory discourse to the nuns 

, skill in obstetrics .... 

compares himself to an ape, and his tongue to a barrel-organ 66, 



-, his only vice save one .... 

-, his code where women are concerned 

-, Captain of the Veils ..... 

- rummages the chambers of the nuns 

- plays the part of Hercules . . . . 
-, his eyes ... ... 

-, paralleled with Hector .... 

- ascends the wall . . . . 

- compares himself to Troy dismantled 

-, in an uncomfortable predicament, begins to moralize 

- differs from Homer in an important matter 

- compares himself to a lover watching his lady's lattice, 

- hangs up " the blessed rod " as a monument 

- compares himself to the animal that " lives in sties " 

- compared to a fire-engine that has " ceased to spirt " 
-, suckled like Jupiter .... 

-, his love of horrors taught him .... 
-, and the 5fre/?5ia<Zc5 of Aristophanes 

- commences his office .... 

- and Thomas Downing, fellow-classics 
-;" no subject known his page but suits " 



Sage, the philosophic, incapable of feeling cold or heat 
Salutation, the abbess's, to the triumphant hero . 
Satan's color and peculiarities 
SciPio aids in the education of the youthful hero . 
Sepulchre of David, the .... 



Page 


Verso 


23, 


283 


23, 


287 


24, 


295 


24, 


297 


e 25, 


305 


29, 


335 


29, 


336 


31, 


360 


32, 


365 


33, 


375 


37, 


417 


45, 


481 


46, 


490 


46, 


490 


47, 


501 


49, 


511 


52, 


521 


65, 


29 


65, 


34 


n66, 


35 


70, 


76 


81, 


129 


90, 


219 


94, 


282 


96, 


310 


100, 


385 


101, 


405 


103, 


438 


104, 


457 


106, 


480 


112, 


533 


142, 


136 


190, 


563 


197, 


623 


198, 


633 


227, 


61 


227, 


63 


271, 


612 


276, 


665 


282, 


693 


293, 


731 


110, 


517 


174, 


412 


155, 


231 


241, 


226 


148, 


174 



INDEX. 

Sethos, king of Egypt, and priest of Vulcan, story of 

Sexual vices of convents, what ? . 

Seymour, (Mr. Daniel) . • • • 

Ships, on the breaking up of the ice, — a comparison 

Sietta's houries, — their complexion, eulogized by the hero 

Silver age, the men of the ... * 

Simplicity of a novice, the . 

Singular effects of poetic rapture . . . • 

Sir Walter Scott's opinion of the poetry of Mrs. Hemans 

Six virgins shoulder the mystic cane 

Sixteen-fingered race, the . . • 

Slanders, shameless, of a certain print 

Smutty stories, the hero's early passion for 

Solemn procession of nuns 

Soliloquy in a garret, the hero's 

Sonnet, by Park Benjamin 

Song of triumph, the nuns' 

, the hero's 



Sordidness of the giantDooLAN . . • • 

Specimen of exquisite wit and humor, from the Tales and Sketches 
Spirit, the hero's early display of • • • • 

Sportsman (village) •••••• 

Story, Rubeta's, which he tells to his strange visitors 

Sublimity, astounding instance of, in the diary of Petronius, 

Submission, graceful, of the hero to the fancies of the sisterhood 

Sugar plums and goat's milk set before the hero at the refection 

Superb passage from the Mysterious Bridal . 

Superstitions, ancient, observed in the lustration of an infant . 

Superstitions live by traditionary habit 

Sybil, the North American . . • • • 

Systems of philosophy, tendency of, to get beyond common sense 



423 

Page Verse 
172, 375 
44, 458 
149, 174 
90, 220 
166, 289 
226, 60 
106, 475 
28, 318 
127, 746 
89, 215 
75, 99 
158, 246 
241, 231 
33, 377 
253, 386 
346, 913 

170, 352 

171, 372 
336, 47 
182, 511 
241, 233 
123, 710 
259, 476 
211, 765 
164, 273 

64, 17 



Talfourd (Mr. Thomas JVoon)'s " florid bombast " . 

. fustian in prose 

Tappan (Mr. Arthur)' s notions of the Manhattanese ladies 

, a practical amalgamator . 

Tasso's poetical fancy, to what ascribed by himself 

Taste, elegant, a specimen of • 

Tearsheet (Doll) on the title Colonel 

Temperance, the hero's . . . • • 

Terror, the hero's, in the vault, justified 

Thorax, and the punishment of Daphitas 

To Ka\bv, new interpretation of . • • 

Transformation, the . . • • • 

Triacleur {Mons.), the " poetical midwife " • 

Trollope (Mrs.), on republican vulgarity • • 

True child of the herdsman, what the goddess did with it 



221, 
221, 
225, 
222, 



17 
41 
41 
17 



110, 517 



364, 953 

. 365, 953 

42, 448 

. 43, 450 

206, 729 

. 310, 808 

263, 529 

. 205, 717 

128, 765 

. 310, 806 

70, 69 

. 269, 593 

336, 900 

. 248, 326 

235, 167 



424 



INDEX, 



Page Vor«e 
Truth, though to be told, not to be volunteered, at all times . 80, 123 
philosophically set at naught by Rubeta . . 108, 504 

Ulysses, the modern ...... 259, 476 

Unrequited love, — a comparison .... 142, 136 

Valla (Laurentiusys profane declaration . . . 161, 254 

Vallombrosa, the MSS. of . . . . .78, 118 

Venus, influence of the planet .... 205, 725 

Voyage to Manhattan, the hero's first, — what happened thereon 248, 320 

Waldie (Mamys hireling ..... 229, 82 

Journal of Belles Leftres . . . 229, 82 

Wand, the hero's mystic, extraordinary properties of . . 94, 300 

Ware (Dr. John) ...... 298, 764 

Warning, curious, which Cant gave the apprentice . . 274, 638 

Warren (Dr. John C.) ..... 298, 764 

Washington, in a quadrille ..... 278, 683 

FTa/crs Jo/m, — " Hys Springe " .... 285, 711 

' — , his " glorious ■' muse «... 334, 900 

Weasel's (Mother) "den of privy prayer " . . . 276, 662 

Webb (Mr. J. Watson) ...... 298, 766 

Webster (Mr. Daniel) 802, 791 

Weeds, floating on tropical seas, a simile , . . 98, 346 

Weir (Mr. Robert W.), Thoughts inscribed to . . 336, 900 

Wig, Bruno's 68, 58 

Willis (Mr. K. P.) 196, 599 

, his Bianca Visconti, . . . 355, 936 

Wine-drinkers, who should be, and who should not . . 206, 729 

Wit, the hero's 288, 713 

Woodcocks and martyrs ..... 109, 514 

Wordsworth (Mr. Williamys self-parallel with Milton 186, 532 

lawful place as a poet . 187, 532 

Preface to the Lyrical Ballads 186, 532 

notions of poetry . . 284, 709 

— • — > — Poetry and Misrepresentations Appendix. 



', J^ ^^ 














t999 













" • * v* v^ 

0^ ,^ 



4°. 



^^^. ^f V' ^v" \. ■'ye 






^ «. ,♦ 



^1 . .^ 



^•1°.^ 




